A day after GA reports record number of new COVID cases, Macon hospitals urge safety
As the number of COVID-19 cases rises in Middle Georgia, hospital officials on Friday cautioned locals to avoid crowded holiday gatherings and voiced “concern” about what could lie ahead if such warnings go unheeded.
Speaking to reporters and others on a video conference call, Dr. Tom Oliver, acting president and CEO of Navicent Health, said the chain’s hospitals weathered the regional spike in cases during the summer.
But he said a rise in cases in recent weeks across the state “has been particularly worrisome the last 10 days or so.”
COVID-19 patients on the rise
Oliver said three Navicent hospitals in Middle Georgia on Friday were treating a total of 61 inpatients.
Of those, 46 were at the Medical Center in Macon. Fourteen were at a hospital in Milledgeville and one was at a hospital in Peach County.
“Not nearly the number we experienced in July and August,” he said. “This is good news. However, the rising number of positive cases throughout Georgia and specifically central Georgia is a concern.”
Another hospital official on the conference call, Stephen J. Daugherty, CEO of Coliseum Health System, said his company’s two area hospitals are treating a total of 43 patients, with five of those in ICU.
The number of inpatients at Coliseum hospitals at one time peaked earlier in the year at about 80 people, he said.
“Our community has been suffering a long time from this. Since early March and through today, certainly the patients affected with COVID are suffering. Families that are separated from those patients are suffering. And our healthcare workforce is suffering,” Daugherty said.
He urged locals “not to let your guard down” and to follow safety measures such as mask wearing, hand washing and practicing social distancing.
‘They are worn out’
Charles Briscoe, president and CEO of Houston Healthcare, which has hospitals in Perry and Warner Robins, said a total of 43 inpatients — five of them in critical care — were presently being treated there.
Briscoe, speaking on the call with Daugherty and Oliver, applauded his company’s “heroic” healthcare workers.
“Our nurses, our respiratory therapists ... they are outstanding, and they are worn out,” Briscoe said. “That’s just another reason we are begging the community to be smart and do what we’re asking.”
Middle Georgia numbers
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported 4,775 new COVID-19 cases in its Friday update, 52 deaths and 304 hospitalizations. Thursday, DPH reported a single-day record of 6,126 new cases.
Bibb County leads Middle Georgia with 7,994 cumulative cases, followed by Houston (4,751) and Baldwin (2,631).
According to the health department, hospitals in Region F — which includes Bibb and Houston counties — are at 76.3% capacity, and 85.5% of ICU beds are filled.