The COVID-19 pandemic has hit hospitals and health care workers particularly hard, prompting Hoptown Chronicle to pay special attention to how COVID-19 has impacted Hopkinsville’s only medical hospital, Jennie Stuart Medical Center.
On Friday, there wasn't a single intensive care bed available in Christian County or within its 11-county region. In the majority of other areas, more than 95% of ICU beds were occupied.
As health care workers grapple with the pandemic’s most recent wave, a few things are clear: patients hospitalized with COVID are getting sick quicker, are younger than before and are mostly unvaccinated.
While the hospital's COVID-19 patient occupancy is the lowest it has been in two months, data suggests Jennie Stuart is still under stress from the coronavirus pandemic.
COVID-19 hospitalizations at Jennie Stuart Medical Center have declined from a recent peak, but newly released federal data show the hospital has been under what health care experts consider "extreme stress."
For the week of Dec. 18 through 24, the hospital reached record highs for the total number of inpatient beds occupied by coronavirus patients and its overall proportion of COVID-19 patients.