Latest sign of hospitals’ COVID crisis: Patients kept waiting in ERs for beds
Illinois hospitals running short on inpatient beds are increasingly housing patients in their emergency rooms, creating a situation some doctors say threatens the quality of care.
As of Sunday night, the most recent state data available, Chicago hospitals had 239 people waiting in beds in ERs for space elsewhere in the hospital to open up — the highest level ever measured during the pandemic. An additional 220 people were waiting in ERs in hospitals in suburban Cook County, and with more still in the regions covering DuPage and Kane counties (50), Lake and McHenry counties (39) and Will and Kankakee (27).
The situation is one more sign of the unprecedented strain placed on the Chicago area’s health care system by a COVID-19 case surge that public health officials hope peaks this month. But at the moment, there’s no indication in state data that the curve is about to bend.
“We have not seen a reprieve,” said Yolanda Penny, director of nursing services at St. Bernard Hospital and Health Care Center on the
