This poster is part of an IU Health media campaign asking the public to help reduce the spread of COVI-19. IU Health officials said a record number of staffers has been sidelines with COVID-19 at the same time the system is sing more coronavirus patients than ever. Photo courtesy IU Health/Twitter
Local health and government officials are sounding the alarm: Spiking COVID-19 cases, primarily of unvaccinated people, are threatening to overwhelm exhausted hospital workers.
“Our hospitals are at our highest capacity we’ve seen,” said Brian Shockney, president of Indiana University Health's South Central Region.
Shockney also said the hospital system increasingly has to move additional staff to the bedsides of COVID patients and away from their normal responsibilities, which include surgeries.
That means many patients who have been waiting for surgeries will have to continue to wait.
'Stretched beyond prior belief':Hospitals strive to handle latest COVID-19 surge
“We have hundreds of patients who need surgery, who are in pain, who have conditions that require surgery, and we cannot do them,” Shockney said.
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