COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio officials described a desperate situation in Ohio’s hospitals as the state surpassed 6,500 patients with COVID-19 on Thursday.
What You Need To Know
- The governor met with members of the Ohio National Guard Thursday
- DeWine said January will be a tough month of the pandemic for Ohio
- Officials fear that hospitalizations will worsen in central and southern Ohio
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine met with members of the Ohio National Guard in Columbus who are being deployed to work in hospitals and expand COVID-19 testing. In total, 2,300 members of the Ohio National Guard are being deployed.
“All of us depend on our hospitals to protect us, and now the National Guard is involved in protecting our hospitals, enabling them to continue to protect all of us,” DeWine said.
The governor said January will be a tough month for the state. The hospitalization rate in Ohio is third worst in the country.
While DeWine said it’s possible the surge will subside quickly, like South Africa’s omicron surge, officials aren’t sure when Ohio might get through the current crisis.
“I don’t know whether we’re going to have to call in more members of the National Guard. No one knows how long this omicron surge is going to last.” DeWine said. “What we hope is that it doesn't go very far into February, but we don't know that.”
Ohio Adjutant General Maj. Gen. John C. Harris, Jr. said the Ohio National Guard has additional capacity to support hospitals, but officials are making careful decisions about how many guard members to activate because there are consequences to other sectors when they pull people from their day jobs.
“The goal is to not mobilize more than we need to to get the hospitals through this crisis without impacting the rest of the state too adversely,” Harris said.
Most of the service members are being deployed to the northern part of the state where hospitals have been hit hardest, but officials said they expect to shift more people in the coming weeks to central and southern Ohio, where COVID-19 hospitalizations are still rising.
Harris said the Ohio National Guard is handling a wide range of tasks in the approximately 35 hospitals where they’ve been assigned to allow the health care workers in those hospitals focus on sick and injured patients.
“The ability to turn beds quickly and get people out of the emergency department and into those ICU beds, or other beds in the hospital is critical, so our folks are helping turn those beds as quickly as possible,” Harris said. “They are helping with general administrative tasks and anything else they're asked to do in those hospitals.”
Hospital workers are overworked and overwhelmed from the surge of patients, Harris said.
“When you walk into an emergency department and see patients in beds in the hallways waiting for rooms, you realize the significance of the crisis that's occurring in our healthcare system right now, which is why we're here,” he said.
Addressing the media at the Defense Supply Center in Columbus, DeWine also acknowledged frustration from residents who can’t find a COVID-19 test.
“The reality is that since the beginning of this pandemic, this country has not had enough tests,” he said.
The governor said more testing sites supported by the Ohio National Guard will be coming online in the next few days. The testing sites will reduce the number of patients showing up to emergency departments to get a test, he said.