Hospital stretched thin, as Klamath Co. has highest weekly test positivity rate in Oregon

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. —This week, Klamath County has the highest COVID-19 test positivity rate in the state. Now, its largest hospital is struggling to adapt to the demand.

Monday, Sky Lakes Medical Center said it intended to open a second COVID-19 isolation unit, but couldn’t, due to staffing issues. Tuesday, the center had 19 patients in its COVID-19 unit. That’s near the record number of patients it had back in December.

Covid-19 is hitting Klamath County hard. It’s seen a drastic increase in COVID-19 cases in the last few weeks.

Tom Hottman, Spokesperson for Sky Lakes Medical Center says it was averaging 8-12 people per week, then 12-15, but recently its hit 19. During the worst of the pandemic in December, its high was 21.

“The fact of the matter is we are seeing it, there’s more positive cases in the county, the positivity rate is up, and just the math, some of those patients are going to be hospitalized and we are seeing that,” said Hottman

Last month, the staff reconfigured the covid isolation unit so it could accommodate more patients in anticipation of things getting worse.

“Yesterday it got worse, because of staffing issues, we just didn’t have enough people to go around, rather than being able to open a second unit, as we had hoped and planned, some of the very sick covid patients were co-located in the same intensive care unit with non-covid patients,” said Hottman

The hospital even had to cancel several elective procedures Monday, just to meet staffing demands.

“We’ve got a lot of patients in that covid unit right now who are taking a lot of resources from a lot of staff, the major theme among those patients is lack of vaccination,” said Hottman.

Valeree Lane with Klamath County Public Health says this week, the county has its highest case rate per 100,000 population and the highest test positivity rate in the state. Lane says a good majority of the rise in cases is due to spring break travel.

“In their interactions with friends and relatives and neighbors that just kind of populated the contagion,” said Lane.  Both Hottman and lane urge individuals to get vaccinated to help stop the spread.

Hottman says a second covid unit is still in the works and could happen at any moment.

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Jenna King is the 6pm and 11pm anchor for NBC5 News. Jenna is a Burbank, CA native. She graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Broadcast Journalism and a minor in Sports Business. During her time at Oregon she was part of the student-run television station, Duck TV. She also grew her passion for sports through her internship with the PAC 12 Network. When Jenna is not in the newsroom you can find her rooting for her hometown Dodgers, exploring the outdoors or binging on the latest Netflix release.
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