‘Who gets care and who does not’: KS hospital officials ask for emergency declaration

Wesley and Ascension Via Christi hospital executives are calling for a statewide emergency declaration that would allow hospitals to house more than their licensed number of patients, as surging COVID-19 cases perpetuate dire conditions in Wichita’s overcrowded ERs.

Dr. Kimberly Megow, chief regional medical officer of Wesley’s parent company, HCA, spoke about the life and death treatment decisions being made during a video conference with hospital officials from across Kansas on Wednesday morning.

“We continue to run well over 100% capacity in all of our ERs. Some of them are 200 or 300% capacity,” Megow said, referring to a metric based on the number of staffed ER and overflow beds available.

Megow said hospitals are already turning down transfers of patients in critical need of care, and making other excruciating decisions about staff and resources.

“It can get bad enough that we may have to institute what’s referred to as crisis standards of care,” Megow said. “For those of you listening who might not be familiar with that terminology, it is basically what the military does during wartime, which is deciding who gets care and who does not. Who gets a chance at living and who is left to die.”

Dr. Tom Moore, the lead physician in Wesley’s COVID-19 unit, told The Eagle last week that patients are routinely sleeping in the ER and sitting in chairs for days while they wait for beds to become available.

Dr. Sam Antonios, Ascension Via Christi’s chief clinical officer, said the same story is playing out in Ascension’s Wichita hospitals.

“Busy ERs and busy hospitals with lots of transmission of disease,” Antonios said during the video conference with chief medical officers hosted by the University of Kansas Health System.

Antonios said Ascension, like other hospitals around the state, is dealing with an influx of staff members infected by the virus, exacerbating an already debilitating staff shortage.

“The impact on our staff over the last couple of weeks, we have seen the number of staff that have gotten sick and can’t be at work — it has tripled,” Antonios said.

He and Megow agreed that a statewide emergency declaration could help hospitals navigate the deadly combination of the delta and omicron variants that just propelled Kansas to a new single-day record number of COVID cases, according to data from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

“Omicron, while it’s publicized to be less deadly and really just a cold, we’re still seeing people in the ICU, and we are still facing death with those patients,” Megow said.

“Our hands are tied without an emergency declaration.”

Kansas’ previous COVID-19 emergency declaration expired last June after 15 months when Republican lawmakers canceled a meeting with Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who was seeking an emergency extension.

“Having an emergency declaration could provide a pathway for either the National Guard or other federal assistance with actual people to come and help with staffing,” Megow said.

Antonios said anything the state can do to provide relief for its strained hospital system should be considered. He said public health officials need to be listened to and taken seriously.

“We probably want to consider some of the powers to be provided to public health officials in each of our communities, that they can issue the right guidance to their communities,” Antonios said. “Right now, I think a lot of public health officials feel like they don’t have a lot of authority.”

This story was originally published January 5, 2022 at 11:55 AM.