Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear on Aug. 19 said hospitals are strained for staffing amid the latest COVID-19 surge, with at least 21 of them facing critical workforce shortages, according to WEKU, a National Public Radio-member station.
Kentucky has 96 acute care hospitals, meaning the critical staffing shortages are affecting about one-fifth of the state's hospitals.
"Our hospital capacity, really the capacity that we have based on the staffing that we have, is reaching a critical point," Mr. Beshear said at a news conference.
The critical staffing shortages come as Kentucky also hit record COVID-19 intensive care unit admissions.
On Aug. 19, the governor announced 4,836 newly reported cases of COVID-19, the third highest report of new cases in the state during the pandemic. He also reported that 1,658 Kentuckians with COVID-19 were hospitalized; a record 466 were in the ICU; and 229 were on ventilators as of Aug. 18.
Steven Stack, MD, commissioner of the Kentucky Department for Public Health, said Aug. 19 that hospitals' challenges, in addition to staffing, include: inability to transfer pediatric patients to children's hospitals because beds aren't available; inability to transfer patients to higher care levels because beds aren't available at other facilities; needing to use crisis standards of care; and in some cases, needing to cancel elective or nonemergency procedures.
The governor said state officials have also signed a directive allowing people licensed to practice medicine or nursing in other states to serve in Kentucky on an emergency basis.