SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO.com) — It’s a sobering assessment of the “bone-weary” battle Sioux Falls healthcare systems are waging against COVID-19.
Avera McKennan’s Mike Elliot says hospital workers are stretched to the limit, doing jobs they don’t normally do and working long hours, amidst the surge.
“We don’t have the capacity to take care of double the normal of people that we care for on any given day, but COVID has done that, has stretched us.”
Elliot says they have so many critically-ill patients from COVID and from other things right now.
“We just don’t have enough critical care trained nurses. We just don’t have enough intensivists.”
He says the current surge is the definition of exponential growth from the summer.
Elliot says healthcare workers are very tired – one used the term “bone-weary” – but they are also frustrated by what they see when they leave the hospital after a busy shift.
“They go out in the community and they watch people gathering in masses of 100, 200 people, not wearing their masks, not seeming to understand that this is real folks.”
Health Care professionals continue to urge residents to take the pandemic seriously: wear masks, social distance, and don’t go to work if you feel sickfes
