DETROIT, Mich. (WXYZ) — Henry Ford Health System officials held a news conference Tuesday afternoon to update the general public on the pandemic's impact on hospital operations and overall staffing.
President of Health Care Operations and COO at Henry Ford Bob Riney tells us that there are “just around 400 patients with COVID-19 that have been hospitalized or waiting to be admitted.”
Amongst those 400 patients, Riney says “In the past week we have seen a 21% increase of covid infections among people of ages 21 – 35 compared to the previous week.”
Riney alerted the general public that 113 team members at Henry Ford Hospital have tested positive for covid this past week. Today, they had 100 employees test positive.
When it came to what is available for patients, Riney explains that among the Henry Ford locations in Detroit and Wyandotte they had to close 70 beds due to low staffing.
Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine John Deledda, M.D. was also a part of the afternoon conference.
“We are in a worse situation today than any other surges in the state of Michigan,” says Deledda. The M.D. explained how the majority of healthcare in southeast Michigan predicted this surge back in August.
“Your short-term actions are impacting the viability of hospitals. This, in turn, is impacting the ability of our emergency departments across the region.”
Deledda explains how there is a superimposed labor crisis in the healthcare field and that resources they once had at the beginning of the pandemic are now more scarce. He also details how emergency departments across the country are currently operating either in full or over capacity. Henry Ford Hospital is currently treating on average 250 patients a day in their emergency department.
Additional Coronavirus information and resources:
View a global coronavirus tracker with data from Johns Hopkins University.
See complete coverage on our Coronavirus Continuing Coverage page.
Visit our The Rebound Detroit, a place where we are working to help people impacted financially from the coronavirus. We have all the information on everything available to help you through this crisis and how to access it.