Leader of Mississippi’s largest hospital: ‘We are negative 14 ICU beds’

Published 10:57 pm Wednesday, August 5, 2020

The leader of Mississippi’s largest hospital system says the hospital had negative-14 ICU beds available on Wednesday.

Dr. LouAnn Woodward, the vice-chancellor of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, told WAPT-TV that the hospital has more patients needing ICU care than they have space.

“We’ve got a crunch on our ICU beds,” Woodward told the TV station. “We are negative 14 ICU beds. What that means is we have 14 patients here at the hospital somewhere, they’re either being held in the emergency department or they’re being held in the recovery room or other places that need an ICU bed and there’s not a bed available.”

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Woodward and other health care leaders have been warning they feared the state’s hospitals are running out of room to care for the most critically ill patients as the high numbers of COVID-19 coronavirus cases are putting a strain on the state’s health care systems.

Earlier Wednesday the state reported a record 329 COVID-19 patients are in Mississippi ICU beds with nearly 200 of those on ventilators.