Hancock Regional Hospital. Greenfield, Ind. Tuesday, June 28, 2022. ()
HANCOCK COUNTY — Sunday marks the third anniversary of the day COVID-19 was first reported in Hancock County.
Life has returned somewhat to normal for most, but healthcare providers say their line of work has been changed forever.
“It’s kind of a new world we’re living in,” said Steve Long, president and CEO of Hancock Health, which operates Hancock Regional Hospital and a number of other facilities throughout the county.
While the number of COVID cases has dropped drastically over the past year, hospital officials say the number of patients being admitted into the hospital for various reasons continues at a higher rate than before the life-threatening virus first surfaced.
“We don’t know if it truly is because of COVID and people putting off going to the doctor or if it truly is just because our county is growing and our county is getting older, which is naturally going to increase those (hospitalization) numbers,” said Craig Felty, the hospital’s Chief Operating Officer and vice president of patient care.
“The numbers have stayed pretty steady over the past six months to a year, so we’re thinking this is going to be the level we’re at for the next several years to come. Since it’s looking like the new norm, we’re working on how we can strategically be positioned so we can take care of these folks,” he said.
Felty said the patient’s hospital beds have been “pretty much full all the time.”
The hospital’s average daily census — the average number of inpatients in a given year — is between 45 and 50, he said, compared to 35 to 40 before the onset of COVID.
Felty said the increase is not due to COVID but a myriad of other ailments, from cardiac and respiratory issues to cancer, but the hospital still sees an average of one to two COVID-positive patients admitted to the hospital each day.
That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the numbers the hospital was experiencing at the height of the virus, when 90 in-patients succumbed to the disease within the first two years.
Those years left an indelible mark on the world, especially healthcare providers who dealt with sick and dying patients each day, all while at high risk of contracting the potentially deadly virus.
“COVID has changed the face of healthcare forever,” said Felty, Hancock Regional’s Chief Nursing Officer.
“We have experienced so many challenges throughout COVID, with a higher number of patients and challenges with the labor pool, as far as getting qualified staff to be able to work. That’s all been exacerbated by COVID,” he said earlier this week.
“We pretty much feel we’re consistently going to have a few people with COVID-related illnesses admitted to the hospital. We just don’t know when some new variants might come out in the future, and if they’re going to cause additional illness and a surge that we’re going to have to manage,” said Felty.
Regardless, “COVID is here to stay. We’ve kind of started treating it like the flu,” he said.
As health experts worldwide keep an eye out for new variants, Felty said healthcare providers continue to promote vaccines as the best line of defense against contracting the virus.
“Our message is still to get vaccinated. It definitely has less of an impact when you’re vaccinated. There are newer boosters out there for some of the new, more recent variants,” he said.
“You can get boosted every six months if you have high-risk factors, like respiratory illness and disease, so you should talk to your doctor about what’s the best regimen for you.”
While COVID vaccines became a polarizing topic of debate for many, Felty said they have repeatedly been proven safe and do a great job of reducing the level of symptoms in those who do become ill.
“They have a lesser illness and are less likely to be admitted than those not vaccinated,” he said. “A lot of patients getting the newer variants, they don’t even know they have COVID. They might just feel a little weak, with a headache or sore throat that might only last a day or two.
Felty said that’s great news for not only COVID-positive patients but for healthcare providers who were mentally and physically pushed to the brink in the two years after the onset of the virus, when three-quarters of Hancock Regional’s patients were there because of the virus, many of them on ventilators struggling to breathe.
“We’re still very busy, but it makes a big difference when you don’t have patients who are (dying) on you every single day due to COVID,” he said.
“Now it’s a different kind of stress (with overall elevated patient numbers), but our folks do a really really good job with the patients nonetheless. We are bouncing back, no question.”
