Kansas City area hospital leaders: Don’t listen to politicians on COVID, listen to us
For nearly two years doctors at The University of Kansas Health System have, as they put it often, stayed in their lane when speaking publicly about COVID-19, avoiding anything that sounded political and sticking instead to science.
But this week the gloves came off as hospitals face what administrators call the toughest surge of the pandemic. In a first, KU on Wednesday invited 16 health care leaders from the Kansas City area and across Kansas to brief the public about the crisis.
They made clear they need help from policy makers who have dropped mask mandates and the emergency declarations in Kansas and Missouri that gave them flexibility they need now to handle the surge.
The message to the public: This pandemic isn’t over just because some people suddenly proclaim that it’s over.
“I think the frustrating part is we see political leaders out there saying, well, either A, we’re going to declare victory or B, nobody wants to have a mask mandate,” Dr. Steve Stites, KU’s chief medical officer, said during the Wednesday briefing.
“We know mask mandates absolutely bend the curve, absolutely help protect us. We’re seeing them (mandates) go up across the world and now in the western and eastern seaboards of the United States.
“People don’t seem to have the political will or power here to do it. And the hard part is, that’s what’s going to make sure that schools won’t be able to be open, businesses won’t stay open because nobody will be there to work because so many people are going to be out sick.”
Dr. Lisa Hayes, chief medical officer at AdventHealth Shawnee Mission, was the first to speak and began with a heavy sigh. She and the other doctors described staffing shortages, backed-up emergency rooms, and patients, even non-COVID patients, dying while waiting for care.
“Every single person on this call has dedicated their lives to the service of others, to our patients, to the community,” said Dr. Jennifer Schrimsher, an infectious diseases physician at LMH Health in Lawrence and deputy public health officer for Douglas County.
“And we are sitting here staring at a situation where I can’t provide the same level of care as I would have normally.”
One by one they expressed frustration and pleaded for help from the public and government leaders.
Stites challenged media stories out of Florida suggesting that some pediatric hospitals have inflated their COVID rates.
“If you look at the hospitals around our area, we’re all overwhelmed and we all have really high numbers. That’s just not coincidental. That’s not just because, oh, people are just here who happen to be here and they just happen to test positive. Oh come on, that’s baloney,” said Stites.
“You have to face the facts head-on. The facts are we have an exploding number of COVID-19 patients, people aren’t using good infection control, governments have backed off mask mandates because they think they’re unpopular. And as a result, people and patients are suffering in our hospitals.”
The KU system had 96 active COVID cases on Thursday, up from 90 Wednesday and 73 on Monday. Only eight of the patients are vaccinated.
Four COVID patients died Wednesday.
It’s an emergency
Kansas lawmakers declined to extend the state’s emergency declaration in June. Last week, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson announced the emergency status was no longer needed.
In Missouri, “there was a declaration of victory but what I’m hearing doesn’t sound like victory,” said Stites.
He added: “I just love those proclamations because they’re made without any grounding to it. I think one of the problems is that people can look at a hospital, they drive by it, and it looks like it’s normal. The lights are on, it seems like things are going.
“They don’t see smoke rising out of the rooftops, but the reality is inside things are not normal and things are not going as well as they should.”
Emergency declarations in both states could allow hospitals to move staff around as needed and provide staffing help from the National Guard and other outside sources. “An emergency declaration in both states would be extremely helpful,” said Dr. Kim Megow, chief medical officer at HCA Midwest.
In Missouri, ending the emergency order also makes it more difficult for local governments to issue public health directives such as mask mandates.
“We probably want to consider some of the powers to be provided to our public health officials in each of our communities so they can issue the right guidance to their communities,” said Dr. Samer “Sam” Antonios, chief clinical officer at Ascension Via Christi Health in Wichita.
“Right now I think a lot of public health officials feel like they don’t have the authority and that is something that the state could consider.”
In Missouri, Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who is running for U.S. Senate, has threatened legal action against school districts that require masks and quarantines and municipalities that issue public health orders.
Megow said the biggest challenge hospitals face is staffing “because of the sheer numbers of patients we’re trying to care for, both COVID and non-COVID.
An emergency order from the state would allow hospitals to house more than their licensed number of patients “which is important right now. We have hospitals that are completely full and have reached their limit,” she said.
“It also allows some flexibility with what roles different staff members can play. on the health care team. That’s important as well when we’re trying to get all hands on deck to try to care for people.
“It can be helpful to have additional support from non-traditional staff members. Our hands are tied without an emergency declaration.”
In a statement, spokesman Sam Coleman said Gov. Laura Kelly is communicating with health care leaders to assess the situation.
In Missouri, Parson is not reinstating a new state of emergency, his spokeswoman said Thursday.
Stites said he recently heard a chief medical officer from a rural hospital talking about dialysis patients dying because they can’t get transferred to other hospitals for their treatment. The officer “opened up a textbook and tried to put in some catheters and figure out how to do it,” Stites said.
“… We are in crisis, and it’s just shocking to me that people want to declare victory when we’re at this point.”
Mask mandates and the shot
Though mask mandates might be returning in some communities — Douglas County will require face coverings inside public spaces again starting Friday — they have by and large been dropped.
Local school districts have a patchwork of ever-changing mask rules, from a universal mandate to just younger students, as Johnson County mandates, to none at all.
Even so, hospital leaders asked the public to heed the science, not the politics, and stay masked up for now.
“One of the big things we are requesting across everywhere is for kids to be masked in schools, the staffs continue masking,” said Dr. Jennifer Watts, chief emergency management medical officer at Children’s Mercy, echoing a plea in Johnson County signed by more than 200 doctors earlier this week.
“We want kids in school, 100%. We all do. We need it for the children. For their entire well-being, for the economy, for the workforce at the hospitals. But most importantly, we need the kids in school so they can continue to learn.
“And the best way we can do that is to keep masks on.”
When administrators talk about hospitals being full, Watts said, “we no longer have areas for the sickest of the sickest kids … kids having (winter) accidents, typical childhood injuries that happen to normal, healthy kids. So it’s really hard to take care of everybody and doing our best to shuffle around the best that we can.
“But our options are extremely, severely limited. And we are scared where this is going to take us.”
She said mask mandates worked in schools. “We’ve done this before. And we know that it works,” she said. “So we are putting the plea out to schools to help us help you. Help us take care of the kids that need the hospital, that are extremely sick.”
KU’s Stites expressed frustration that not enough people are “reacting strongly” to the hospital emergency and some won’t follow the rules of infection control that doctors have preached, including getting vaccinated.
“We’ve got to ask our community to help us mitigate the dire consequences that we’re in,” said Dr. Kevin Dishman, chief medical officer for Stormont Vail Health in Topeka.
“Vaccines are safe. They are effective. They are available. We need everyone to get vaccinated. We need everyone to wear a mask. We need everyone to social distance and we need them to do it now.
“Our community can help us stop this pandemic. But we’ve got to have the cooperation of everyone in the community. People that have waved the flag of personal choice are extending this pandemic.
“We must do everything we can to protect ourselves and protect each other. That is how we will get through this pandemic.”
The Star’s Jeanne Kuang and Katie Bernard contributed to this report.
This story was originally published January 6, 2022 at 1:31 PM.
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