HONOLULU — Hawai‘i is seeking hundreds of health-care workers to join its hospitals as the delta variant of the novel coronavirus surges within the state’s unvaccinated population.
Hospitals have the supplies necessary to address the rising number of cases, but not enough staff, experts told state senators on Thursday.
“Last year, at our peak, we had approximately 140 medical personnel from the mainland in our acute-care hospitals,” said Hilton Raethel, president and CEO of the Healthcare Association of Hawai‘i. “When we put our request out this week, we got requests for over 500 additional staff.”
Hawai‘i has contracted the extra personnel using funds secured through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The first group, one of three planned waves, is expected to arrive in 10 days. It will include intensive-care-unit nurses, medical-surgical nurses, telemetry nurses, emergency-room nurses, respiratory therapists and technologists.
Staffing shortages have been exacerbated by a lack of rental cars and hotel rooms, according to Dan Brinkman, CEO of Hilo Medical Center.
“As the economy heated back up, we found that it was very hard to attract contract nurses to the islands,” he said.
The state has hired a staffing agency to address the issue. According to Raethel, the company is renting vans to establish shuttle routes to and from hospitals and is working with hoteliers to secure lodging. Ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft will be used where rental cars are unavailable.
About 2,300 of Hawai‘i’s 3,000 staffed hospital beds were filled on Thursday. Of that number, 164 were coronavirus patients, 95% of whom are unvaccinated.
“It is really stressing staff, especially when
vaccinations have been available now for approximately eight months,” Raethel said, adding hospital workers “are putting themselves and their own families at risk, even when most of them are fully vaccinated, because they have to deal with these unvaccinated, COVID-positive patients.”
The state Department of Health reported that just over 60% of the state population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19. But, according to the experts, the rising infection rate amongst the unvaccinated is now more than double the infection rate seen at the height of the pandemic last August.
Young people represent the majority of new coronavirus cases, as the vast majority of Hawai‘i residents aged 65 and older have been fully vaccinated. This means fewer victims will require ventilators or admittance to the ICU. However, the contagiousness of the delta variant could still overwhelm the health-care system through sheer volume.
“I don’t want to speak prematurely, but our biggest concern is not a big wave of COVID-related deaths,” Brinkman said. “It’s more a general strain on our system and the ability to provide other health-care services our community needs, in addition to handing handling this new stage of COVID.”
Both Raethel and Brinkman stressed the novel coronavirus remains lethal, despite advances in treatment and a change in the average patient’s risk profile.
“We know that a large number, or certain percentage, of these people who are infected today will show up in our hospitals in seven to 10 days,” Raethel said.
“Unfortunately … a small subset of those individuals will die.”
The two experts called for continued vaccination efforts and urged residents to continue to wear masks and practice social distancing.
Most new cases are contracted through travel and gatherings among family and friends, they reported.
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Scott Yunker, general assignment reporter, can be reached at 245-0437 or syunker@thegardenisland.com.
All preventable. Get vaccinated.
This is alarming news knowing that our COVID cases are only going to rise. I would hope that more businesses will offer financial incentives to get employees to vaccinate which will hopefully take care of a certain number of the work force but that won’t help bring in more medical personnel to our taxed health care system nation wide.
How are hospital staff putting themselves “at risk” if they’re all fully vaccinated? Maybe because the vaccine doesn’t work, we’ve already seen proof of that, it’s not even FDA approved and it’s being pushed onus like it’s holy water, what happened to “My body my choice” , this is a FREE country, the media continues to push its own narrative and guilt or force people into doing something that isn’t even proven effective
Everyone in the world, including you, will get the Covid Virus flu eventually – EVERYONE! The best thing we can do is let everyone get it now so we can all build up the much preferred, efficient, and long lasting immune system in our own bodies naturally! The vast majority of everyone dying of this virus are obese, immune deficient, have other diseases that will kill them anyway etc. Everyone who is healthy regardless of age, will make it through and the world will have a much better arsenal of immunity to control and fight the virus.
They unvacc’d need to change their tune.
Have they seen thousands of people dying or falling ill from receiving the vaccine? No.
Have they seen people being taken over like robots from receiving the vaccine? No.
Time to man up, and get your shot!
Post your ignorant comments below. However if you actually live here, and actually know someone in health care in Hawaii, you know it’s getting worse. Pretty soon you’ll know someone in Wilcox unless people change their behavior. Kauai’s numbers are 12 times higher now than a year ago, still climbing. It’s sad to see the same comments from the same people every day – ignoring the reality of the sickness and deaths, but still they post.