New Mexico hospitals brace for more COVID-19 patients in December, urge residents to get vaccinated

Leaders at two of New Mexico's largest hospitals reported Tuesday they remained well over their licensed capacity and expected inpatient loads to increase through December due to COVID-19's delta variant. 

They also said it was too soon to tell what dangers might follow from the recently identified omicron variant, and urged New Mexicans once more to get vaccinated, mask up in public and follow other common precautions in an effort to slow community spread. 

"The best thing we can do at this point in time is to double down on the tools that we know work against this variant, and all variants of COVID," Dr. Rohini McKee, UNM Hospital's chief quality and safety officer said during a video news conference. 

Those tools, she reiterated, consist of wearing masks indoors in public settings as required in a statewide public health order, washing hands frequently and keeping six feet of distance from non-household members. 

At Presbyterian Healthcare Services' hospitals, 85 percent of COVID-19 patients currently admitted had not been vaccinated, chief medical officer Dr. Jason Mitchell said. 

Because increases in hospitalizations and death from the disease caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus lag increases in daily cases by two or three weeks, Mitchell said hospitals were bracing themselves for still more COVID patients as hospitals across the state are also treating unusually high numbers of patients with other health problems as well. 

McKee said UNM Hospital has seen no relief from this year's increase in non-COVID patients even as COVID hospitalizations trend upward following the delta surge.

On Tuesday morning, Mitchell said 220 of the hospital's patients, or 28 percent of its total patients, were suffering from COVID-19. 

"Those of us that are still unvaccinated should really think about what we are allowing the virus to do in our community," McKee said as she urged adults who had completed a primary course of vaccine to get booster doses, offered for free to the public, and to be vaccinated for influenza as well. 

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Hospital leaders plead for COVID-19 vaccinations

Mitchell expressed concern that only 23 percent of New Mexico adults — 370,082 individuals, per data from the state health department — had received the additional doses, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends for everyone ages 18 and older.

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"If every New Mexican who can get a vaccine — that's everyone in New Mexico (age) 5 and up — got vaccinated in the next couple of weeks, this pandemic would end for New Mexico within the next six to seven weeks," Mitchell asserted.

The additional doses are recommended six months after an initial course of Comirnaty (from Pfizer-BioNTech) or Moderna, or two months after the single-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine.

On Monday, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky "strengthened" that recommendation in light of early data about the B.1.1.529 variant identified by the Greek letter omicron. The World Health Organization designated it a "variant of concern" on Nov. 26. 

While scientists in South Africa have suggested the new variant may be linked with a recent spike in cases there, very little is yet known about how transmissible it is or whether it causes more serious illness than other strains, according to health experts. 

McKee and Mitchell represent two of seven hospitals in New Mexico that have enacted crisis standards of care. While they do not report they rationing healthcare as yet, the hospitals each said they have had to convert more spaces into treatment areas and restricted nonessential procedures. 

In response to shortages of nurses and other healthcare workers, Mitchell and McKee each said their hospitals had hired hundreds of traveling nurses from outside New Mexico, with no beds left empty due to workforce shortages. 

McKee said UNM Hospital was currently caring for patients at 140 percent of its regular capacity and added, "There is not a single bed that is not being used right now." Mitchell said that Presbyterian, capacity was around 120 percent.

At Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces, a regional hub in New Mexico's hub-and-spoke hospital network, 30 COVID-19 patients, comprising 20 percent of its patient census, was reported Tuesday morning. Spokesman Andrew Cummins called that "a representative average for the last few weeks."

MMC was not limiting any nonessential procedures at the hospital's main campus or other facilities, but Cummins said that could change if conditions worsen. The hospital has not enacted crisis standards of care.

MountainView Regional Medical Center in Las Cruces did not answer questions about how many COVID-19 patients it had, its current capacity or staffing shortages.

In a written statement, spokeswoman Catherine Zaharko wrote, "We are sustaining care for all patients who come to us for their medical needs and we encourage the public not to delay seeking care in a medical emergency."

No beds empty due to staffing

Mitchell said that while Presbyterian hospitals were adequately staffed, the state's nursing shortage was hitting nursing homes and other care facilities hard, affecting many patients after they are discharged. 

During a legislative briefing earlier in November, the New Mexico Hospital Association reported that in the midst of shortages, nurses and other medical staff were also facing increasing harassment and even violence. 

McKee said she was not aware of violent incidents at UNM Hospital, but Mitchell said Presbyterian had increased security measures, even installing metal detectors, while also increasing support for medical workers facing losses of patients as well as poor treatment by the public. 

"People are really stressed," Mitchell said, "and oftentimes, when they're coming for care they may be at their personal worst." 

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Cummins said that MMC had not seen any "noticeable increase" in violent confrontations involving workers. While allowing that staffing was challenging, he wrote, "At this time, we have adequate staff and resources to care for our patients."

Zaharko said MountainView was "unaware of any confrontations toward our healthcare staff." 

But the emergency that has prompted five hospitals in the Albuquerque area, plus the San Juan Regional Medical Center in Farmington and the Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center in Alamogordo to enact crisis standards of care continues, and Mitchell said rather than worry about the unanswered questions posed by the omicron variant, the biggest problem remained the delta strain for now. 

"Delta is burning through America, and we can stop it with vaccine," he said. 

Algernon D'Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.