Help is on the way, according to health officials, as a growing number of patients with COVID-19 continue to fill hospital beds amid a staffing shortage crisis driven by the omicron surge.
An estimated 250 to 260 contracted health care workers from the mainland are expected to arrive in Hawaii this weekend to help care for COVID-19 patients, according to the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, a nonprofit trade association for hospitals.
“Most of our hospitals, in terms of staffing, are either stretched or at critical staff levels,” said Hilton Raethel, president and CEO of HAH.
Raethel said the first wave of 250 or so workers, mostly nurses, is expected to arrive this weekend, go through orientation, then start working next week. Another wave of up to 250 workers is expected the following weekend.
The multistep approval process for bringing more than 900 health personnel to Hawaii with Federal Emergency Management Agency funds is still underway, according to Raethel. It is in the finals steps of approval, but has not gotten the full green light yet.
“We made the decision last Friday that we could not afford to wait for the official green light from FEMA because of the acute need in our hospitals,” he said. “We are anticipating, based on all the information we have, that we will by the time they start early next week.”
If funding is not approved, then hospitals will be responsible for footing the bill.
Hospitals in Kona, Hilo and Maui are in dire need of help, according to Raethel, as are the two Queen’s facilities on Oahu.
The Queen’s Medical Center at Punchbowl and QMC-West have both declared an “internal state of emergency,” with the former doing so on Wednesday as the rates of emergency room visits and hospital admissions outpaced the number of available staff.
“Like other organizations across our country and state, Queen’s is experiencing the widespread effects of community exposures from the omicron variant on our team,” said Jill Hoggard Green, president and CEO of The Queen’s Health Systems, in a statement. “Currently, we have over 800 caregivers (nursing, providers and ancillary) unable to work due to close contact or a positive test for COVID. To address staffing shortages and ensure we provide adequate care, we have contracted with qualified traveling nurses and community-based ancillary staff.”
Hospitalization numbers for COVID-19 patients, meanwhile, continue to grow.
They grew to 331 on Wednesday, according to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency dashboard, and not 439, as was erroneously posted earlier that afternoon. Of those 331 patients, 35 are in intensive care and 13 on ventilators.
HI-EMA confirmed that one hospital submitted a double entry, resulting in the larger number.
The corrected number, 331, was a 61% increase from 205 reported a week ago. On Tuesday, there were 324 hospitalizations, with 31 in intensive care and 14 on ventilators, according to HI-EMA.
On Wednesday, the Hawaii Department of Health reported 3,512 new infections statewide, bringing the state’s totals since the start of the pandemic to 153,540 cases.
The statewide seven-day average of daily cases was at 3,707, and the average positivity rate at 20.7%. Average positivity rates on neighbor isles are growing rapidly, and were at 22.4% for Maui County and 20.3% for Hawaii County.
Raethel said not as many COVID-19 patients are requiring intensive care as during the delta surge, but that hospitalizations are still increasing amid worsening staffing shortages.
“We expect the numbers to continue to climb because of the very high positivity rates and infection rates that we’re having,” he said. “The other problem is we still have literally hundreds of staff out because of exposure and positive tests.”
An estimated 1,400 to 1,500 health care workers at Hawaii hospitals are out, he said.
Additionally, hospitals were pretty full before this surge, and on Wednesday, the number of patients in beds was at 2,366, one more than the 2,365 during the peak of the delta surge.
The state reported five more coronavirus-related deaths, bringing Hawaii’s COVID-19 death toll to 1,110.
