National Guard members arrive in Southeast Georgia’s health care system in Brunswick

BRUNSWICK, Ga. – Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp announced on Tuesday that it was deploying 105 members of the National Guard to more than a dozen hospitals across the state, including eight members who arrived in the southeastern health system on Wednesday. Georgia, Brunswick.

As of Wednesday, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health’s scorecard, there were 13,491 patients in Georgia hospitals, 87.3% of capacity, and 2,758 in intensive care beds, or 90% of capacity. Region J, which includes the coastal counties of Georgia, had 892 patients out of a total of 969 beds, accounting for 92.05% of capacity.

In the health system in southeast Georgia, Brunswick, there were 135 COVID-19 patients, 48 ​​of whom were in critical care units, as of Wednesday. Fourteen of those who received treatment were vaccinated.

Announcements

“Right now, we’re having an unprecedented increase in COVID in our community and our staff is subject to taxes in terms of caring for the record number of patients we’ve had,” said Ryan Kerr, Southeast’s corporate board. Georgia Health System. “But we’ve also had a number of staff, like any employer, who are due to their own COVID infections.”

A doctor describes the conditions they face as a war zone. The National Guard will help the hospital with the increase in COVID over the coming months. However, the medical chief of the health system in southeast Georgia, Alan Brown, said they would like to be able to have more members of the National Guard because they have such a small staff.

“Our emergency times or waiting times are huge, probably the highest I’ve ever seen, and it inhibits our ability to help patients who don’t have COVID,” Brown said.

News4Jax was reported that the hospital emergency room handles 15 to 20 COVID-19 patients a day, which decreases the ability to help other patients. The hospital has had to cancel surgeries, turn surgery rooms into intensive care units and reassign staff.

Announcements

The governor’s announcement deploying members of the National Guard came on the same day that Glynn County schools announced the current number of positive COVID-19 cases in their schools and the community had increased its operational level of ” yellow “to” red “. ”

Depending on the school district, distance learning will be held during regular school hours through the Google Classroom from August 30 to September 10. The district said attendance will be optional for students Wednesday through Friday and absences will be excused these days.

“Updates on the return to face-to-face learning will be based on data collected by schools and provided no later than September 10, 2021,” Glynn County Schools said.

Brown said there was a chance to slow the spread before COVID-19 had a ripple effect across Glynn County.

Announcements

“It might have been helpful to use masking temporarily, but unfortunately, two weeks after we decided not to, we went back to virtual schools,” Brown said.

Isabel Cortez is a mother with children in Glynn County. He said he wanted the students to be in the virtual school from the beginning of the year because he was afraid to send them in person.

“Many students caught Covid. Now mine are at home and, unfortunately, many of my children’s friends also caught COVID, ”Cortez said.

Another parent, who wanted to stay nameless, told News4Jax that he will keep his children in virtual school for as long as it takes.

“I know my school in particular has so many kids outside, and my two were actually two of those who got it, so I fully support the virtual school for a while,” he said.

Across the state, 25 districts and charter schools are sending all their students home and becoming virtual temporarily. The Glynn County District, with more than 12,000 students, became the largest to take that step. Two districts and one charter school have already returned from the deadlines of school learning, while at least six districts are closing individual schools. At least seven districts have switched to A / B schedules where students attend class every two days. Overall, more than 100,000 students statewide have been affected by closures or schedule changes.

Announcements

More than 1% of school-age children in Georgia have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past two weeks. Now children between the ages of 5 and 17 are more likely than adults in general to test positive for COVID-19. The state Department of Public Health reported more than 30 infection clusters in schools across the state, the highest since the outbreak began.

The health system in southeast Georgia has four pediatric beds and Brown said they have had their share of pediatric hospitalizations.

“While the kids still seem to have better results than everyone else, not everyone has results like they had with the first variant, and that’s very tragic and very unfortunate,” Brown said.

Brown said for the good of the hospital, the school and the community, it is best for everyone to get vaccinated.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.