Clinton, NC – The Intensive Care Unit at Sampson Regional Medical Center is 150% full and all patients treated at the unit have coronavirus, health officials said.
“We are placing patients in non-ICU locations that are ICU patients, staffing them and caring for them in those locations instead of our normal ICU,” said Shawn Howerton, medical director of the Regional Medical Center. of Sampson County.
In the past two weeks, more than 750 people have tested positive for the virus in Sampson County, according to data from the state Department of Health and Human Services. Across the state, 25% of the nearly 4,000 North Carolinians with COVID-19 are in intensive care units and almost all are in a ventilator.
Each COVID-19 patient requires 12 to 14 times more gallons per minute of oxygen compared to a normal patient who needs respiratory support, Howerton said. Even with this amount of oxygen, patients continue to feel drowned.
“You’re using so much oxygen that the oxygen tanks are starting to freeze on the outside,” he said.
Firefighters had to be called in to spray water on 8-inch-thick ice slabs that were accumulating in the oxygen tanks outside the hospital. These tanks used to have to be refilled about once a month, now they need to be refilled once a week.
“At this point, there is no end in sight,” Howerton said.
Experts predict that hospitalizations will only increase as more people travel this fall. Duke University’s infectious disease specialist Dr. Cameron Wolfe believes September could cause the worst virus we’ve seen so far.
“This weekend you collided with the car, I don’t know if I can find a bed. This is good. We had never been in this situation, ”Dr. Wolfe said.
Statewide, only 20% of hospital beds were available on Friday.
The hospital posted a desperate message on its Facebook page: a 2-minute video with the voice of a health worker. The nurse said there were no open beds for people who needed care beyond COVID-19.
“This year we are physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted,” said nurse Kassie Johnson, who works at the ICU.
The video calls for county residents to be vaccinated, for the sake of health care workers. Only 40% of Sampson County residents are fully vaccinated, compared to more than 60% of Wake County, according to state data.
“After giving so much last year, we have nothing left to give and it’s still not enough,” he said.
New York Times data shows that one in 6 people in Sampson County has had the virus and one in 529 people has died from it.
“There aren’t many victories anymore. And when there are, you still cry because someone finally lived,” Johnson said.
Sampson County has seen a 48 percent increase in cases and a 63 percent increase in hospitalizations in the past two weeks, according to data from the New York Times. On Friday, about 150 people tested positive for the virus in Sampson.
Howerton said his staff is completely exhausted and crying as he tries to save as many people as possible, as the Delta variant of the coronavirus spreads rapidly among the unvaccinated.
“I’ve seen people who have just finished their medical careers, where they have no intention of ever practicing medicine again because they are very exhausted,” he said.
Morning Consult surveys show that vaccination skepticism has barely erupted, even when unvaccinated people fill ICUs and hospitals. In North Carolina, 21% of people say they are unwilling to get vaccinated. The main reasons mentioned for the unwillingness to be vaccinated are side effects and distrust of pharmaceutical companies.
“Wake up people, you’re not invincible, no matter how smart you think you are,” Johnson said in the video.