The Salem Township Hospital Board was told Wednesday afternoon that a surge in COVID cases in August and for most of September filled all three ICU beds and brought a large number of patients to the hospital.
Hospital President and CEO Alex Nazarian says they are beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel now.
“ICU was full, but the last one week is where we have some capacity in the ICU but we have been full through August and early September. But we have seen some tapering off. We do try when patients we try to transfer when we can and we had no beds available.”
Nazarian says the lab had its busiest month ever. Most other departments were also well above budget largely driven by the COVID patients including inpatient, outpatient, and the clinics. However, he reported non-COVID patients also continued to use hospital services. Overall, the hospital finished $1.6-million dollars over budget for the month of August.
As a result of the current COVID-19 pandemic, Nazarian says the hospital will not be offering low cost blood test vouchers this fall.
“We are not going to participate in the Home Show this year due to the pandemic because we cannot have large volumes of individuals coming into the hospital and creating a potential contagion here.”
Nazarian says after the Governor’s mandate that all health care workers being vaccinated, there was an uptick in the number of hospital employees getting vaccinated. He says those not vaccinated are being tested weekly as required. Hospital attorney Marvin Miller says there are currently two lawsuits pending to block the Governor’s vaccine mandate for health care workers.
