42 Florida Hospitals Have Zero Remaining ICU Capacity; Another 50 Have 10% Or Less
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Coronavirus cases are spiking around the country in a number of states, but another statistic illustrates one of health officials’ top concerns: dwindling capacity in hospital intensive care units. In fact, the situation is now so dire that a growing number of hospitals have little or no remaining ICU capacity. Just in Florida, 42 hospitals around the state reported zero ICU capacity, and another 50 have 10 percent or less.
Americans who have a positive coronavirus test but are asymptomatic, or have only mild symptoms, do not present a public health crisis, any more than the millions of Americans who contract the common cold or experience seasonal allergies and can treat their symptoms with simple remedies like over-the-counter medicines or bed rest.
But those who require a higher level of medical intervention — especially those who require days or even weeks of ICU treatment, including use of a ventilator — are one of the main challenges facing health officials during this pandemic. The fear from the beginning has been running out of hospital capacity, forcing doctors to ration care and make tragic decisions about who lives and dies.
The data on Florida hospital capacity comes from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, updated as of Wednesday morning. The AHCA reports both overall hospital beds and ICU beds for each county and for each hospital across the state. [Note: the AHCA website is experiencing high traffic Wednesday morning and may take several attempts to load the data. The figures are also slightly updated from when CNN published their report on this topic, resulting in slightly different numbers.]
According to the AHCA, Florida has a total of 47,488 hospital beds, of which 11,975 are available, a total of 6,222 adult ICU beds with 907 (14.58%) available, and a total of 596 pediatric ICU beds with 196 (32.89%) available.
The total number of ICU beds statewide has increased over the past week or so, as hospitals have converted existing units into ICU wards for Covid-19 patients, or added additional ICU beds.
Tallahassee Memorial Hospital is one such case, issuing a statement to WCTV that they had added a separate 20-bed ICU unit specifically to care for Covid-19 patients. Prior to creating that unit, the AHCA data showed that TMH had zero remaining capacity in their 46-bed ICU unit.
According to a report by CNN, Florida is not alone in experiencing not just a surge in coronavirus cases, but also hospitalizations. California, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina are also reporting record numbers of hospitalizations.
Like TMH, hospitals in these states are taking steps to create new ICU units and increase their capacity.
CNN reported a South Texas Hospital in the city of Weslaco that set up a 25-foot tent outside their main ER, more than doubling their capacity from 14 to 34. On Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that the state would be sending 100 nurses and nearly 50 beds to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, which had 345 Covid-19 patients, a quarter of whom required ICU treatment. The hospital currently has 26 out of 234, or 11.11 percent, of its ICU beds available.
