HEALTH
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Treasure Coast Medical Report
flexibility. Different phases of the virus have required different
approaches. With the exception of visits to primary care physicians
and the Scully-Welsh Cancer Center, the hospital reduced
the number of visits to outpatient clinics by 50% in August.
“Staff from those clinics are needed to provide support for
inpatient care at the hospital,” Rosencrance says. “We’ve had
to open new areas within the hospital for COVID-19 care as
our previous units have reached their capacity.”
Dr. Conor Delaney is Cleveland Clinic Florida’s CEO. “We
are committed to providing the very best care to the communities
we service but an alarming trend in the number
of patients in the hospital with COVID-19 … is having a
profound effect.”
Half of their hospital beds are dedicated to COVID patients,
mostly unvaccinated.
“We’ve seen surges in the last 18 months,” Delaney says,
“but now we’re seeing more than twice the numbers we had
in previous surges and more than ever in the pandemic.”
Caregivers are frustrated by holding the hands of so many
dying patients who did not have to be there, had they taken
advantage of every preventative measure available.
“There is an evidence-based benefit of vaccination,” Delaney
says. “And when infected vaccinated patients do need
hospitalization, they rarely need the ICU and hardly ever
require ventilators.”
STAFF AND SUPPLY SHORTAGES
Cleveland Clinic hospitals are doing almost no nonemergency
or elective surgeries. Delaney says, “This is a serious
reminder of the virus’s strength and longevity. While we hear
a lot about COVID fatigue, we’re not going to wish away this
infection. It’s going to be here for awhile.”
Hospitals have brought in
additional nurses from sister
facilities in other markets and
optimized their recruitment to
expand staffing.
“It’s an unprecedented
time,” Dr. Robert Lord says.
Lord is president of Cleveland
Clinic Martin Health. “We’re
setting new records every day
in Martin and Tradition in St.
Lucie County … with younger,
otherwise healthier, patients.
Nobody is safe from dangerous
injuries from the delta variant.”
Lord says that he has never
been more proud to be a part
of his team, praising their
compassion, commitment,
skill and dedication.
But, he adds, “Caregivers
are not an inexhaustible resource.
Dr. Robert Lord oversees three
Cleveland Clinic hospitals in
Martin and St. Lucie counties. In
July, he showed up unannounced
at a Port St. Lucie City Hall meeting
to explain the dire situation.
If we do not work together to limit the spread of this
virus, there is no guarantee that should you get sick, there
will be a hospital bed available for you.”
Doctors and hospitals are doing everything in their power
to care for the higher numbers even as the challenges increase.
Healthcare workers are not accustomed to assigning
degrees of urgency to patients, providing each one with care
and assistance. Because of the uptick in COVID cases on the
Treasure Coast, doctors and nurses must sometimes triage
between sick patients in offices and sick patients in ICU. >>
CLEVELAND CLINIC PHOTOS
Emergency health needs do not stop in a pandemic but in some cases, because there are not enough beds due to the high number of COVID patients,
patients are transferred to other medical facilities in the area.