Johnston Health Pauses Elective Surgeries Requiring Overnight Stay

Change will free up 10 medical beds, but it won’t be enough to meet demand, CMO says

Due to the surge of COVID-19 patients needing hospitalization, Johnston Health will pause elective surgeries at their hospitals in Clayton and Smithfield that require an overnight stay. This change will take effect today (Friday) and will free up about 10 medical beds.

However, it will not be enough to meet demand, says Dr. Rodney McCaskill, chief medical officer for Johnston Health. During the peak of the pandemic in January, the hospital had as many as 72 patients with COVID-19.

“Today, we have 60 patients with COVID-19, and we anticipate these numbers will continue to climb as the more contagious Delta variant spreads among the unvaccinated in our communities,” he said. “Most of our patients hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated.”

Earlier this summer, Johnston Health had as few as four COVID-19 patients. Still, the hospitals were nearly full with patients sicker than usual after putting off preventive care and/or treatments during the pandemic, Dr. McCaskill says.

The pause is one of the strategies the hospital is taking to adjust operations during this stage of the pandemic. Also notable, the emergency departments at both hospitals are referring to transfusion centers and/or treating those patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms with monoclonal antibodies, which can reduce severe symptoms and prevent hospitalizations.

Johnston Health will re-evaluate its decision on elective surgeries in coming weeks.

13 COMMENTS

  1. Don’t want to hear ALMOST all. We need concrete numbers/ percentages. The fact that there are medical experts saying that the vaccinated are super spreaders, should be a major concern. Also, the fact that anyone with a vaccine should need to be hospitalized is alarming in itself is alarming. The vaccine DOES NOT have the magic that was promised. Tired of being lied to!

    • From the article:

      “Today, we have 60 patients with COVID-19, and we anticipate these numbers will continue to climb as the more contagious Delta variant spreads among the unvaccinated in our communities,” he said.

      “Most of our patients hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated.”

    • The only person that is lying is you to yourself stay home if you get covid don’t bother going to the hospital and wasting the time of the exhausted health care workers, and don’t bother taking a bed from a patient who needs a bed for a non covid related issue. Just stay home and keep telling your lies to yourself, the er is busy with covid patients who could of prevented this mess just simply by being vaccinated.

    • You are quite trusting. I am into the negative numbers on my trust-o-meter now. This whole thing that the unvaxxed are causing this is really gaslighting as that goes totally against studies done elsewhere.

  2. Unvaccinated people who contract COVID shouldn’t get priority treatment. If you don’t “believe in” science re: the vaccine, why do you trust science to treat your disease? Stay home and pray.

    • Exactly selfish self centered people who won’t get vaccinated and then they say it’s my choice or my freedom to not get the vaccine, newsflash with rights and freedom comes responsibly in this case get the vaccine not just for ones self but for fellow humans in the community.

      • So are you of the same thought with the flu vax, measles and every single other possible vaccine out there we should not seek any medical care if we do not take them for one reason or another? Just wondering. Do you have all the thousands of vaccines that are available for every possible ailment? Would you get treated for Hepatitis if you caught it but were not vaxxed? What about rabies…are you pre-vaxxing in case you come across a rabid animal, and would you seek treatment if you were bitten? Should I not go to my doctor if I get a different strain of the flu than the China Virus version like Flu B if I do not get that vaccine….you know it is very close to the same possibility of being in the hospital.

      • Based on the openvaers website that tracks vaccine injury and has been proven to only capture about 2% of the deaths and injuries, i will take my chances on not being vaccinated as the unvaxed appear to be doing better than those with the vax. Plus natural immunity still exists!! Overall covid 19 has a 1% mortality rate… the vaccine has a much higher mortality rate

    • Why should it matter to the vaxxed? If it protects you, then you are not in need of the scientific medical care as you are not getting sick. The unvaxxed are the ones paying for their medical care and should get to choose if they need it. Besides, what if they do believe in “the science” but just do not believe in injecting themselves with something that has not been tested long term where the control group (a scientific concept) was invalidated by giving the vaccine to the participants? It is likely we know more about “the science” than you do as some of us have gone past the state controlled media to do actual research on the actual science and we have some concerns.

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