HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — "At one point today we had four [ICU beds], but three patients came into the ER that needed ICU care," said Huntsville Hospital President and COO Tracy Doughty. "So, the number's tenuous, but it's easy to say, 'yes, we're out of ICU beds.'"
Alabama hospitals are past capacity as of August 18.
The Alabama Hospital Association confirmed to WZDX that as of Wednesday, the state had -29 available ICU beds. This means that across the state, hospitals are out of formal ICU beds and have resorted to converting other areas into ICUs.
Doughty says that Huntsville Hospital often has very few beds available, and at other times there are no beds available. He says the makeshift ICUs hospitals are being forced to use are safe and effective, but by no means ideal.
As of August 18, Doughty says the hospital is not concerned about running out of ventilators. In total, the hospital system shares 52 normal ventilators, 61 backup ventilators and 214 crisis ventilators.
Doughty emphasized that regardless of a shortage of beds, people who need care will be taken care of.
Data from the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) shows that the percentage of fully vaccinated Alabamians sits at 35.9% as of August 18, well below the national average of 51% reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Madison County, ADPH reports that there have been 250 new cases per 100,000 persons over the past 7 days, which they consider to be a high-level of community transmission.
On August 9, Huntsville Hospital began to halt in-patient elective surgeries.
Doughty said outpatient surgeries are still being done so long as they do not require the patient to stay in a hospital bed overnight.
"The hospital is very busy and beds are a precious resource, so we're trying to conserve all the beds that we can," said Doughty on August 9. "Anything that we can postpone from an elective standpoint and work with the physicians and the patient to cancel those for now. We're doing so to conserve beds for inpatients but outpatients procedures will continue to go on like always."
On August 6, the hospital restricted its visitation policies. Most patients will be limited to just one visitor.
An exception to this rule is expecting mothers, who may have two adult visitors. Additionally, pediatric patients who are not being treated for COVID-19 can have one visitor in the waiting room and two adult visitors at their bedside.
The full visitation policy can be found on Huntsville Hospital's website.