Hospitals admitting unvaccinated COVID patients from several states

People with COVID-19 are coming to Cape Girardeau for their hospital care from coronavirus “hot spots” in several states because hospital beds are not available elsewhere.

And almost all of them are unvaccinated.

“We are admitting patients from as far away as 11 hours travel time,” according to a statement from Southeast Hospital. Those patients, all of them with COVID-19, are coming from Southwest Missouri, Northern Arkansas and Kansas, the hospital said.

“It’s getting crazy,” said Amanda Shreve, Southeast’s director of marketing and web services, who said the hospital’s COVID patient load is about what it was in late November and early December.

“During that last major spike, we received patients from distances similar to what we’re seeing now,” she said.

As of Monday afternoon, Southeast Hospital had 22 inpatients who had tested positive for COVID-19 and only two of them had been fully vaccinated. Eight of those patients were in the hospital’s intensive care unit, all unvaccinated.

The situation is similar at Saint Francis Medical Center.

“We are receiving (COVID) patients from our entire service region, which covers a five-state area,” said Jimmy Wilferth, the hospital’s marketing and foundation vice president.

On Monday, all but three of the hospital’s 25 COVID-positive patients were unvaccinated and none of the 10 COVID patients in the hospital’s ICU had received COVID-19 immunizations.

“Overwhelmingly, the COVID patients in the hospital are unvaccinated,” Wilferth said, adding the overall number of COVID admissions has grown steadily in the past month or so.

“We were at zero for weeks and weeks, but it’s been a steady increase,” he said. “We are experiencing a very similar situation here as other parts of the country.”

Although the number of coronavirus cases at both Saint Francis and Southeast have increased in recent weeks, officials at both facilities say they have enough capacity to handle more cases and the situation should not affect other hospital procedures.

“We are not postponing elective surgeries,” according to a statement from Southeast. “We have the capacity to continue with elective procedures and care for an influx of COVID patients.”

Statistically speaking, Wilferth said, people who are fully vaccinated rarely contract COVID-19 and when they do, very few of them require hospital care.

The message, he said is simple: “Get vaccinated!”

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