Montco Hospitals Have Overloaded Emergency Rooms, Staff Shortages

NORRISTOWN, PA — The ongoing spike of coronavirus cases in Montgomery County is overloading emergency rooms in multiple hospitals throughout the region, officials said Wednesday.

Over the past week, "between two and four" hospitals in Montgomery County have been on "divert" status for four hours or longer, Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh said.

Divert status means that because there is no available space in emergency rooms, ambulances are being told to divert to other healthcare facilities.

"If you call 911, you may not be taken to the closest emergency room," Arkoosh said.

The exact number of hospitals experiencing this overload was not specified.

All told, 539 individuals across the county are hospitalized as of Wednesday, officials said, with 53 on ventilators. Those are the highest marks of the pandemic. There are still 430 ventilators available, county data shows.

But it's not so much the available space in emergency rooms that poses an issue: it's available staff to handle beds. Widespread cases have significantly impacted the number of available healthcare professionals.

"The challenge for our hospitals is not physical space to put beds, it's having enough nursing personnel, nursing assistance, all the other support staff," Arkoosh said.

Back in the spring, hospitals in Montgomery County relied upon volunteers from around the country to help fill staffing needs. But this time around during the fall surge, that's not an option, as the virus has spread nationwide and volunteers are not available to travel.

It's led some local hospitals to ask retired nurses and other healthcare professionals to come out of retirement.

"Staffing is the critical point," Arkoosh added.

Officials noted that rising hospitalization numbers are something that would force the county to look more seriously at expanding mitigation measures, including school closures.

The increase in hospitalizations comes as overall numbers continued to increase at a record pace across Montgomery County. On Wednesday, the county reported 14 deaths due to the virus, the first day of double-digit deaths since June 10. That's more deaths reported in one day than the county saw in all of August and September, when 13 residents died from the virus.

Officials pointed to recent holiday gatherings as a key spreader.

"We have experienced an unprecedented surge (since Thanksgiving)," Arkoosh said.

Additionally, the county's percent positivity rate has risen to 9.73 percent. That's up from 8.24 percent on Nov. 29.