Idaho declares statewide hospital resource crisis amid Covid surge

[ffr]

Source: NBC News

State officials made the announcement Thursday, which will permit medical facilities to ration health care and triage patients.

Kootenai Health, a hospital in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, has already converted a conference room into an overflow Covid unit, started paying traveling nurses $250 an hour and brought in a military medical unit. The hospital received permission from the state to begin rationing care last week. That's all in response to the Covid surge that in recent weeks has taken over much of Idaho — a state with one of the nation's lowest vaccination rates.

"It's just nonstop trying to find placement for these patients and the care that they need," said Brian Whitlock, the president and CEO of the Idaho Hospital Association, who noted that hospitals across the state are struggling with the same issue. "It really is a minute-by-minute assessment of where beds are open, and hospitals saying we don't know where we're going to put the next one."
-snip-

A regional transfer hub for patients in urgent need of critical care — typically things like car accidents, heart attacks and strokes — Kootenai Health has had to turn down 392 patient transfer requests in the month of August because of their number of Covid patients.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/idaho-declares-statewide-hospital-resource-crisis-covid-surge-rcna1997

[Tetrachloride]

1. 392 denied !!!!!!

[SergeStorms]

5. Isn't that...

about half the population of Idaho?

[jmowreader]

20. Not quite, but it's a huge chunk

[BlueIdaho]

34. Laugh all you want

I live in north Idaho where every ICU bed is full and 90% of all medical procedures are being postponed. It’s no laughing matter around here and people are dying in droves. If you think your community is safe - think again. The next lethal variant may be brewing here, but it’s only a plane ride away from your home town.

[SergeStorms]

37. Save your anger....

for the rugged individualist anti-vaxxers in Idaho who created that environment you're living in.

I'm truly sorry about the conditions you're having to endure in northern Idaho, but it's not anyone on DU's fault.

Stay healthy.

[Comfortably_Numb]

2. A crisis for a hoax?? Begs the question, are those idiots seeing the light yet? I suspect not.

Full speed ahead with covid denial.

[pandr32]

3. Emergency non-Covid patients can't get care

This is so bad.

[SergeStorms]

4. Let's see.....Idaho....

isn't that the place where America's real patriots go to live, so they can escape the "tranny" of the U.S. government and left wing media?

I think this is just some right-wing "false flag" operation so they can commandeer medical supplies for their field hospitals, when the "real" shit hits the fan. I know a good conspiracy when I see one.

[winstars]

8. All the assholes who moved from California for more FREEDUMB!!!

[SergeStorms]

13. Is that who inhabits Idaho now?

I kinda' thought they were from all over the place, looking for that place where like minded crazies could congregate and be left alone.

I guess it would figure there would be a bunch of red-necked Californians settling down there though. Northern California is getting too crowded for them. Too many pot farmers.

[winstars]

17. I just know several "friends" who moved from CA there... So I might be over simplifying

[BlueIdaho]

35. I was born in Idaho and live here to this day.

Last edited Thu Sep 16, 2021, 08:57 PM - Edit history (1)

I am a proud Democrat and remember when Democrats ran this state. I remember Cecil Andrus and Frank Church as national hero’s. It’s also one of the first places that was unionized as mine workers and lumberjacks looked for protection from greedy bosses with no regard for workers. One of the first Unions in Idaho was the IWW - so we go back a ways.

The problems started when the Prop 1 boneheads showed up and started californicating Idaho. It’s gone downhill since then. But you know what? There are plenty of other Democrats fighting an uphill battle to protect and expand people’s rights.

Please don’t write this state off. We can use all the help we can get.

[winstars]

39. Right on!!!!!!!!!

[IronLionZion]

6. Their rationing fears of socialism

have come true with Republicanism

[Evolve Dammit]

7. At what point do you start to "get it?" Much of the country has devolved into QAnon/ Cult 45.

[ffr]

11. What's to get? If you ask them, it's left-wing media hype that's untrue.

I'm not kidding you. They will go on and on about hearing Doctors refuting the claims of the Covid-19 surge and how the democrats are funding the media to say stuff! You cannot make this shit up.

One of the crazies told me she listens to a podcast from a truth-teller from Canada. He left Canada years ago because they don't allow people to tell the truth. So he moved to the states and now has a podcast that tells people what's really going on. She's got it alright. A case of alternative reality that's based on what she wants to believe.

[Evolve Dammit]

19. Easily duped and brainwashed by a "truth-teller." Forty years of AM radio did same thing here. n/t

[Tommymac]

15. No more then 30%. That's a lot but nowhere near a majority...unless you listen to the MSM

which is playing their usual rating grabbing 'Both Sides are valid' game to boost profits for their 1% owners.

Fuckers.

[Evolve Dammit]

18. yeah, it's really true. "Liberal media" was one of the most blatant lies ever.

[jmowreader]

21. Ain't that the truth. Especially Kootenai County, Idaho

We have people here who want to recall Republican county commissioners for voting no on a resolution of support for the John Birch Society.

And two days ago I went to Subway for lunch and a senior citizen was sitting there wearing a hat reading "Trump 2024: The Revenge Tour."

The town is covered with pickups with "Trump Won," "Fuck Biden" and "Not My President" flags flying from their beds.

And I'll tell you the worst atrocity: I was driving back from Spokane with the table (that I had bought at a thrift store) which will become my new bathroom vanity, and I was passed by a car with these things on it: the back window with "I support medical freedom. United we Stand" painted on it, "Repeal the Mandates" painted on the back-door windows, and a "Support Our Healthcare Heroes" bumper sticker. The old Sesame Street song "one of these things is not like the other" came immediately to mind.

[Evolve Dammit]

23. Mixed messages for sure on the last one! Can't believe John Birchers still exist. And Revenge Tour?

"Revenge" is exactly what they are consumed with, so it makes perfect sense in a really evil sort of way.
Stay safe up there.

[not fooled]

29. Birchers just devolved into Trumpers.

That's where they went.


Dinosaurs--> Birds

Birchers-->Trumpers

[Evolve Dammit]

32. I guess all hate groups have coalesced around the Orange Hater Rat Fuck Supreme. Here we go.

[roamer65]

9. Isn't WA already limiting hospitals to residents only?

[totodeinhere]

10. And of course Idaho is one of the reddest states in the country.

We are not seeing this in blue states like Vermont.

[central scrutinizer]

27. But you are seeing it in Oregon, a blue state

The National Guard has been called out to help the hospitals

[NickB79]

30. Oregon is blue only in the major cities

Geographically it's all red once you move away from the coast.

[central scrutinizer]

31. Yawn, yes but acres and cows don't vote

People do, so we’re a solid blue state.

[Ford_Prefect]

12. In the middle of all this urgency the Governor has done nothing to accelerate vaccination

nor is there any directive regarding masking or social practices. In more rational times we would close the state borders and institute lockdown to contain the outbreak.

When you consider that one infected Idahoan probably means 5 more yet undiagnosed at home, or work, or the bar, or at school you realize they are only at the beginning of this wave. This is to say nothing of those who daily travel back and forth to Montana, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.

IMO the situation resembles one where an addict needs a fix and demands relief or else...

They are demanding we recognize their reality without judgement while they deny ours. I view them as vectors who need to be isolated until they are no longer toxic.

They are lemmings who will follow any Q-rumor leading straight over the edge and insist upon taking all of us with them.

[James48]

14. I'm fine with triage.

When they come in the door, the first thing to check is their vaccine card. No card, no service.

You picked your side. Now deal with it. Only vaccinated patients should be admitted.

[Tommymac]

16. I'd give the unvaxxed full service...in a Hospice tent set up in the parking lot.

I'd even give them free lollipops.

[jmowreader]

22. No. Not in the parking lot.

Kootenai Health doesn't have a big enough parking lot as it is.

But I'll tell ya what they COULD do. On the other side of US 95 from Kootenai Health is an abandoned Shopko store. It's got a big parking lot, and nothing's in it right now. It would make a perfect COVID ward.

[BlueIdaho]

36. Howdy Neighbor.

I don’t know how many times I have suggested that Shopko as a Covid Care facility. For all I care they could set up a death with dignity ward x but at least other people could then get routine medical care.

[IronLionZion]

24. The virus must be specially engineered to target red states

The more who voted Trump, the more COVID hospitalizations and deaths now.

[DBoon]

26. a lib/chinese plot to kill real americans

and pollute our precious bodily fluids

[hatrack]

38. "Ice cream, Mandrake?"

"Childrens' ice cream?!?"

[raccoon]

25. Surely, they don't want Big Gubmint to bail them out of their

Largely self-created clusterfuck?

[NCjack]

28. Maybe "Bill Gates" microchips in Ivermectin are controlling them, forcing them

to go to covid-19 hot spots. After arriving, they get infected.

[rdking647]

33. if youre unvaxxeed you should be denied admission to a hospital for covid

harsh but im at that point.
let them die in the street