LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — It's been tense for several weeks now with hospitals across the state getting closer and closer to capacity.
Despite that hospitals like Baptist Health are stretching out their resources to ensure that no patient gets turned away.
Turning vacant rooms into a critical care space is not something that can be done overnight.
But Greg Crain, president of the Baptist Health Center in Little Rock, said they're working hard to get it done as quickly as possible as Arkansas' need continues to grow.
"It actually started with our CEO and the governor and the legislature being more and more concerned about the lack of capacity," he said.
In a matter of weeks, that concern turned into action.
According to Crain, the state gave Baptist Health money to open, staff, and equip beds throughout the hospital system.
"You've got hospitals across the state that they've taken their last patient. They've filled their last staffed bed. The next patient shows up in their emergency department they're able to call and say, 'hey can you take this patient,'" he said.
Crain said creating space for those extra beds is all about planning, logistics, and execution.
"So you've got to know where the beds are. They've got to be the right kind of beds to take care of patients: critical care beds, med surge beds, bringing in the staff to take care of patients," he said.
While that isn't an easy task, as of Thursday Baptist Health has already managed to open up 95 of the 157 state-funded beds.
According to spokesperson Cara Wade, 72 of those beds are already filled with COVID patients receiving care.
The 95 beds include: 50 medical COVID inpatient beds, 12 ICU COVID beds in Little Rock, 21 ICU COVID beds in Fort Smith, and 12 medical COVID inpatient beds in Van Buren.
As of Friday afternoon, Baptist had 107 of the 157 state-funded beds opened.
Crain said as soon as the rooms are staffed and equipped, patients come in immediately.
"We opened 12 beds here in Little Rock and they were filled within 24 hours. We opened 21 beds in Fort Smith and they were filled within 24 hours for critical care," he said.
Most of these rooms are vacant or makeshift but according to Crain, finding space is the easiest part. Getting equipment and staff is the toughest.
"You have a pulmonary critical care bed to put a critical care patient on, they're not just sitting around, so you've got to resource those from different parts of the country," he said.
While all of that in a matter of weeks is a significant help, Crain said they'll work as hard as they can to ease the load on crowded hospitals.
"We're able to help them and take them so we can continue to have the capabilities in local communities to take care of not only COVID, but other emergencies that come along in life," he said.
The goal is to have all 157 beds opened by Aug. 25.
The beds will stay open for up to 60 days. Crain said Baptist Health will then reassess the need at that time.