'Our hospitals and ICUs are filling up with patients who are going on ventilators and many of them dying.'
Front-line workers in Colorado shared their experiences caring for COVID-19 patients in the latest wave.with an influx of patients flooding into health care facilities. Front-line workers continue to bear the brunt of the state's latest wave, with staffing shortages only exacerbating existing issues.
On average, nearly 230 residents are being admitted to the hospital each day, with state data now showing more than 94% of intensive care beds are currently in use statewide.The number of people currently infected is approaching the highest levels of the pandemic, with 1 in 48 people in the state estimated to be currently infectious, according to the modeling report released earlier this month by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and Colorado School of Public Health.
"It is difficult to care for so many COVID-19 patients, just the challenges of how long they're here with us, as well as the strain that it puts on the staff," Dawn Sculco, chief nursing officer at Bellevue Hospital in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, told ABC News."From an organizational perspective this is an all-hands-on-deck situation."
"When our hospitals are overcrowded with patients, everybody will have care that is different than how we usually deliver it. And this can lead to delays, and I'm afraid, worse outcomes," Breyer said. Polis declared"the entire State of Colorado high risk for exposure or transmission of COVID-19," in an executive order on Thursday.