SALT LAKE CITY – From the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health leaders in Utah were clear that the most important decisions about hospitals are the capacity of hospitals, especially when it comes to expensive beds for intensive care units.
The confusing thing is the focus on the word ‘bed’ because it is not really the right way to assess capacity. There are three clear distinctions:
- It’s about STAFF beds.
- It’s even more about STAFF ADULT beds.
- And it’s even more about ORDINARY adults in REFERRED hospitals.
The first is clear if a bed without nurses and doctors does not do much.
READ: US COVID vaccines can not make you sick with COVID-19, says CDC
According to data updated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in late December, Utah’s hospitals have 1,036 ICU beds, but only sixty of the beds are staffed.
However, this is not a scandal of understaffing. The extra space is mostly in the latest hospitals built by Intermountain Health Care: Intermountain Medical Center, McKay Dee Hospital, Utah Valley Hospital and Dixie Regional Medical Center.
If you build brand new hospitals, you will build for decades into the future when the population is larger and more space is needed.
WATCH: Utah health workers receiving a second dose of COVID-19 this week
Why do you show the need for adult beds? Fortunately, COVID-19 did not send many Utah children to intensive care, so the beds available at Primary Children’s Hospital are not an important part of the COVID comparison.
Utah has 623 adult ICU beds.
But the last distinction is also important. Reference hospitals are the large institutions with many specialists. These are the places you send the most serious patients in need of care, outside the resources of small hospitals.
READ: Utah Doctors, Health Care Professionals Concerned, High Positivity
The Utah Department of Health considers 453 ICU beds to be the most sought-after adult beds in referral hospitals.
The state is really in trouble when those hospitals reach their capacity, and that is the danger we all try to avoid with masks and social distance and ultimately vaccines.