Missouri to spend $30 million to relieve hospital capacity strain during COVID-19 surge
Gov. Mike Parson on Wednesday announced that Missouri will spend $30 million on treatment centers and contract medical personnel in an effort to relieve hospital capacity strain caused by the recent COVID-19 surge.
Only 18% of ICU beds statewide remain open as of Thursday, and 21% of inpatient hospital beds are available. More than 2,000 COVID patients are hospitalized in Missouri.
The number of ICU COVID patients is 644, reaching levels not seen since cases began to peak last November.
Half the money, which is coming from last year’s federal CARES Act package, will go toward opening at least five, and as many as eight, antibody treatment centers across the state.
The state already has opened one in Springfield. COVID-19 patients at high risk of serious illness or death can go to the centers soon after diagnosis for infusion of antibodies, or proteins intended to help their bodies fight the virus and avoid being hospitalized.
The centers will have the ability to treat 2,000 patients, Parson’s administration said.
At a news conference, acting health director Robert Knodell said he could not confirm that all patients who were treated in Springfield’s center recovered without hospitalization. But he said the infusion procedure overall is “very effective.” As of last week that center had treated more than 240 patients.
Monoclonal antibody treatments, which received emergency use authorization from the FDA last November, are given to patients within 10 days of diagnosis. Studies have shown them to significantly cut the risk of hospitalization or death. They are different from vaccines, which provide longer-term protection and train the body to respond on its own to future infections.
The other $15 million will pay for contracts to bring medical personnel to Missouri. Hospitals will get staff based on the number of beds they serve. The contractors have not yet been named.
“It is our hope that this program will decrease hospital capacity strain caused by staffing shortages and decrease the need for future alternative care sites,” Parson said at a news conference.
Last month, Springfield and Greene County health officials, attempting to free up hospital beds, asked the state to help to pay for a field facility in a local hotel for COVID patients in less severe condition. They ultimately withdrew the request after local hospitals increased their own capacity, they said.
Available hospital beds in Missouri have fallen from a peak of 20,000 last fall to around 15,000, according to the Department of Health and Senior Services, as the health care industry faces staffing shortages.
“As the surge continues, we’re seeing significant pressure on our workforce,” Missouri Hospital Association spokesman Dave Dillon said. “Hospitals were already experiencing a significant patient load of non-COVID patients. When we add the high patient load of critical care for COVID-19, we are running up against the limit of the beds we can staff.”
The shortage has a ripple effect for patients with other conditions or who suffer emergencies such as strokes or heart attacks.
Dillon called Parson’s announcement a welcome one that “addresses exactly where the challenge is currently.”
To relieve hospital strain, Parson this month also sent ambulance “strike teams” provided by the federal government across the state, including in the Kansas City region, to transport patients to hospital beds hours away.