LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas — Tuesday was the third day in a row for record-high number of patients on ventilators in Arkansas.
"The numbers are concerning, but it's the severity of illness, it's how sick the patients are that's the most troublesome," said UAMS CEO Dr. Steppe Mette.
For the past several weeks, UAMS has had between 65 and 75 COVID patients in the hospital.
Between one-third to a half of them are in the ICU, and of those, half are on ventilators.
Dr. Mette said that's very different from last year when only 20% were in the ICU.
UAMS has a surge plan in place and has added 60 more patient beds just in the past week.
Ambulance services have also been struggling to keep up with the excess of calls.
"The crews are very tired, physically and emotionally," Jason Gartner, LifeNet Strategic Projects Director.
LifeNet, an ambulance service in Garland County is also feeling the crunch. Hospitals are overwhelmed, having to make ambulances wait for patients to get in.
"It can be 45 minutes to an hour and a half is the average range somewhere in there," said Gartner. "Individually, we're pretty close to max capacity as far as daily transfers."
With no clear end in sight, and with thousands of unvaccinated kids now back in the classroom, UAMS is preparing for the worst.
"We're prepared to double patients with COVID illness that we can take care of at UAMS double from what we have currently. That will stretch us to a point we don't really want to be," Dr. Mette.
Baptist Health has 278 patients with COVID-19, and almost half of those are in the ICU. Eighty-eight percent of those hospitalized at Baptist Health with the virus are not vaccinated.