ICU fills up at St. Luke’s Nampa hospital, meaning patients must be diverted to Boise
The 10-bed intensive care unit at St. Luke’s Health System’s hospital in Nampa has filled up, forcing the hospital to send ICU patients to Boise for medical care.
The hospital has 87 beds total, and non-ICU departments are not full, St. Luke’s spokesperson Anita Kissee said.
“I just want to reinforce the points we shared (at a news conference this week) — while we are concerned by the increasing numbers, we still have capacity and we’re managing care,” Kissee said via email.
The hospital has patients in the ICU with a variety of medical and surgical needs, not just COVID-19, she said.
Many patients with severe complications from COVID-19 need intensive care; others can be treated outside the ICU.
While it’s not exceedingly rare for hospitals to need to divert patients, capacity has been a top concern among local health leaders as Idaho’s coronavirus cases and hospitalizations surge.
Health care leaders from around the Treasure Valley this week called for mask mandates. They also pleaded with Idahoans to follow public health advice, wear masks and practice social distancing.
Asked whether the health system’s Meridian hospital had opened up a second floor for COVID-19 patients, Kissee said that “there have been some patient moves at Meridian Medical Center to different floors, but that is per normal based on patient acuity.”
St. Luke’s hasn’t canceled elective surgeries at any of its hospitals, Kissee said.
Three months ago, the hospital’s first coronavirus patient, 66-year-old Chris Waters, walked out after spending two weeks on a ventilator in the ICU.
“She was really struggling,” nurse supervisor Losa Manuokafoa said then, according to a health system blog post by Sandra Forester. Manuokafoa continued: “A week in, staff began to prepare themselves for her not to make it. But she stayed stable and then came out of it.”
