US military, NMHS detail joint efforts to care for COVID patients
Sep. 3—TUPELO — A team of roughly 20 military personnel — including physicians, nurses and respiratory therapists — are currently bolstering forces at the North Mississippi Medical Center to help care for the surge in COVID-19 and other patients.
The team of U.S. Department of Defense personnel arrived on Aug. 25. The team will fill in the gaps left by a combination of factors, including a surge of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and a shortage of nurses to care for them.
"We have soldiers from San Antonio, we have soldiers from Tacoma, Washington, soldiers from Fort Polk, Louisiana so they each come from their own home spots," said North Mississippi Health Services (NMHS) Chief Medical Officer Jeremy Blanchard. "What you're seeing is really America at its finest."
This is the first time Department of Defense medical assets have deployed to assist the hospital during the coronavirus pandemic. Mississippi is among the states with the highest number of infections per capita.
During a press conference at NMMC in Tupelo on Friday morning, representatives of both the hospital and the Department of Defense detailed how they're working as an integrated team to provide a greater level of care to the people of Northeast Mississippi.
Blanchard described a range measures hospital staff have implemented in order to ensure the safety of their patients, including masking policies, visitor screens, patient testing for COVID-19 and mitigation strategies.
Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Stephen Duryea, who is currently stationed at Gulport, Louisiana, said his medical team will be supporting the facility.
"The integration has been fantastic thus far, and we continue to want to improve access to care and we will continue to further integrate as described," Duryea said.
Sergeant First Class (SFC) Andrew Stewart will serve as the senior enlisted adviser to LTC Duryea as part of the 23 personnel medical response team (MRT). The army team will work with FEMA, the lead federal agency. They were requested by the state of Mississippi to help with COVID response.
"There is a COVID emergency in a sense happening right now. We're just here to (support FEMA) and provide our physicians and providers to provide medical care," Stewart said.
NMMC President David Wilson emphasized that though the DOD team has been on site almost a week, they only represent a small fraction of the people caring for people at the hospital.
Nursing shortage a nationwide problem
Like hospitals across Mississippi and the country, capacity has been limited not by the physical number of beds, but rather an ongoing shortage of nurses. Among reasons include nurses retiring early, leaving the profession or finding alternative work.
"We have fewer nurses here today than we did one year ago," Wilson said. "Having the DOD team come in the supplement in particular the nursing and the respiratory therapists, it's been a welcome addition."
As of September 3, NMHS has 87 positive hospital patients and 28,806 positive outpatients. As of Friday morning, there were 110 system-of-care patients, which includes any patients who require critical care. There are 53 employees who are off either because they are COVID-19 positive, and 26 who are currently off pending results.
The rapid rise of delta variant necessitated the need for emergency assistance. The pandemic has long affected overall care, including when hospitals had to limit elective surgeries in order to open beds for COVID-19 patients.
Although not mandating vaccinations among its own employees, NMMC officials on Friday advocated the importance and efficacy of vaccinations. As of Sept. 3, 69 of the hospital's 87 COVID-19 patients were unvaccinated.
Of the vaccinated patients who die, Blanchard said many are immunocompromised, which makes them more vulnerable to COVID-19.
"What all this data means is one big sentence, that is vaccines work to protect you from serious illness," Blanchard said.
