Health

5 Beaumont hospitals among Michigan's most crowded as Covid spikes again; Troy's branch is full

April 17, 2021, 4:46 PM by  Alan Stamm

Hospitals throughout the state feel near-capacity strains from Michigan's third Covid surge, with 33 facilities at 90% occupancy or higher.

Beaumont Hospital in Troy is maxed-out on admissions, with all 530 beds filled Thursday. Covid victims occupied 167 beds, including 30 in intensive care. Three smaller sites outstate also hit 100% capacity that day.

Four other hospitals in Beaumont's eight-city network were 92% to 97% full, as listed below among a dozen tricounty Detroit-area healthcare sites that rank with the 33 most-crowded statewide. 

The 12 nearly full hospitals in Detroit and its suburbs had 1,200 Covid patients Thursday, including 185 in intensive care. Beaumont Royal Oak (92% occupancy) had 206 coronavirus cases. (Last Saturday, we reported that seven Metro Detroit hospitals were at least 90% full.)

"It's been horrible," respiratory therapist Mariah Bartholomew of Ann Arbor comments Saturday under a social media link to this article. She works at Ascension Providence in Novi, which had 73 Covid patients Thursday.

Michigan's first spike came in spring 2020 as the plague began surging nationally, and a second surge hit this state in November and December. Now some hospitals are slammed again. 

A state update Saturday afternoon shows 5,530 new confirmed virus diagnoses and 69 deaths, including 60 fatalities that occurred before Friday. 

In the past seven days, positive diagnoses rose by 28,626 and Covid deaths climbed by just over 200 for a 13-month total of 16,840.

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"Our public health system is overwhelmed," the governor's chief medical officer says. (Pre-pandemic stock photo: DepositPhotos)

The Department of Health and Human Services dashboard also lists 4,183 hospitalized adult Covid patients Friday and 59 pediatric cases. Among the adults, 873 were in intensive care.

More than 19 percent of Michigan hospital beds hold Covid patients, up from 15 percent two weeks ago. Confirmed and apparent virus carrier fill almost one-third of intensive care beds, the latest Lansing figures show.

"Because we are seeing so many cases a day, our public health system is overwhelmed," the governor's chief medical officer, Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, said recently. "We are not able to get information on many cases, nor are we able to identify their close contacts."

At Beaumont Health, chief nursing officer Susan Grant tells Crain's in this week's issue:

"None of us would have imagined going through that extraordinarily difficult time [last year] that we would be here again, same time this year, and that we would be working and seeing so many patients who are infected with coronavirus."

The list below excludes Detroit's 123-bed Karmanos Cancer Center, where just three Covid patients contributed to Thursday's 98% occupancy rate. Another local hospital, Henry Ford Wyandotte, was at 89% occupancy with 92 Covid patients (20 in intensive care).

And outside the tricounty Detroit region, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor was at 98% with 74 Covid cases (14 in the ICU).

Metro Detroit 12 most-crowded hospitals (April 15)

  • Beaumont Troy: 100% full | 167 Covid patients, including 30 in ICU 
  • Detroit Receiving/University Health Center: 98% | 41 Covid patients, 13 in ICU
  • Harper/Hutzel (Detroit Medical Center): 98% | 51 Covid patients, 20 in ICU
  • Henry Ford Macomb (Clinton Twp.): 97% | 184 Covid patients, 23 in ICU
  • Beaumont Dearborn: 97% | 125 Covid patients, 15 in ICU
  • Beaumont Farmington Hills: 95% | 80 Covid patients, 10 in ICU
  • Beaumont Wayne: 95% | 35 Covid patients, 6 in ICU
  • Henry Ford West Bloomfield: 95% | 63 Covid patients, 4 in ICU
  • Ascension Providence, Novi: 95% | 75 Covid patients, 13 in ICU
  • Beaumont Royal Oak: 92% | 206 Covid patients, 20 in ICU
  • Ascension Macomb-Oakland, Warren: 91% | 97 Covid patients, 19 in ICU
  • McLaren Macomb, Mount Clemens: 91% | 77 Covid patients, 12 in ICU



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