TEXARKANA, Texas - With similar statements this week, administrators of the city's two hospitals answered questions about their capacity to treat COVID-19 patients, saying that each remains prepared to provide its normal quality of health care to everyone.
Both Wadley Regional Medical Center and CHRISTUS St. Michael Health System declined to provide the numbers of intensive care unit beds available or other specific information about treatment capacity, but they sought to reassure the public that they stand ready.
"We understand our community wants to know numbers, but this is very difficult to provide since the situation can change in a matter of minutes. Reporting numbers at a moment-in-time could be very misleading because it is so fluid and everchanging," both statements read.
CHRISTUS emphasized that being a multi-national health system gives it the capacity to deploy supplies and equipment as needed to affiliated hospitals.
"Our hospitals continue stand ready and able to take exceptional care of our community. The recent increase in COVID-19 cases has resulted in devoting more of our resources to COVID care. However, our hospitals, emergency rooms, operating rooms and clinics remain open, safe places for all to receive quality care.
"Our emergency preparations for CHRISTUS St. Michael include the monitoring and evaluation of our capacity and supplies across all areas of our ministry. We are in a constant readiness state utilizing every available resource to ensure our hospitals have the labor, equipment and supplies required not only to fight this virus but to care for all health care needs," the statement read. "In the event that we need to move additional resources to our CHRISTUS St. Michael ministry we are prepared to do so."
Wadley encouraged anyone needing emergency health care to go to the hospital without worry that COVID-19 will prevent their treatment.
"Taking care of patients remains our number one priority. Even though we are in a challenging time, we are ready to care for anyone who needs emergency care. If you think you are having a medical emergency, such as a heart attack or stroke, the most important thing is to seek immediate care. Protocols are in place to appropriately care for these patients in a timely manner in order to have the best outcome.
"In an Emergency Room, patients are triaged and typically the ones who are waiting the longer periods of time, are those deemed to be less critical. Staff are trained to assess each patient to determine the urgency of need. This process remains constant and has not changed during the COVID pandemic," the hospital's statement read.
Wadley also said that it is taking steps to ensure enough personnel are available to treat all patients, a consideration that is more important than the number of beds available.
"As healthcare providers, we take extra precautions if staff have a high-risk exposure. We follow the CDC guidelines in these instances and any staff who may have been exposed are required to quarantine and meet strict criteria before returning to work. We do this to keep our patients and the rest of the staff safe. In these events we utilize a small number of agency nurses to help fill in gaps as needed," the hospital stated.