MIDLAND, Texas — Midland Memorial Hospital is feeling the strain of more hospitalizations, and it’s not just the adult population. The pediatric unit is already over capacity, with few options to move kids elsewhere.
Midland Memorial only has 12 pediatric beds available at any given time, and all of those beds are currently occupied, with more kids being cared for in the emergency room.
MMH Chief Nursing Officer, Kit Bredimus, believes mitigation efforts such as masking and social distancing are needed to protect the young kids who are unable to get the vaccine.
"When you look at the demographics across the state right now, you do see that pediatric hospitalizations are on the rise across the entire country and across the state in a significant fashion more than we’ve seen in previous waves," Bredimus said. "I think that is definitely concerning this time around, recognizing that in previous waves we had other mitigation factors in place."
A full pediatric unit is something that MMH hasn't seen during the pandemic.
"Since the pandemic, we have not seen our pediatric unit full," Bredimus said. "In fact, in previous waves, we were looking to close down the pediatric unit because we just didn’t have a whole lot of population there. Prior to COVID, there were instances, you know bad flu seasons, bad RSV seasons, where we may fill up on a pediatric unit, but I’ve never seen it fill up this quickly."
The hospital has looked into transferring patients to other hospitals, but that has proven to be a problem as well.
"As you know, hospitals across the state are filled also in the pediatric units," Bredimus said. "Our pediatric hospitals across the state are also over capacity, so at this point we are continuing to look at hospitals across the country that may be able to take patients, but at this point we have not been able to identify."
Bredimus said that the best thing we can do to protect our younger population is to practice the mitigation efforts.
"We want to see the best for our kids," Bredimus said. "We want to see the best for all of our patient population, so it’s just gonna be very important to again go back to those mitigation practices that we had. Children under 12 can't get vaccinated. Anyone over 12 years old can get vaccinated and should."
Not all of the patients in the pediatric unit are there with COVID-19. One patient has tested positive, while another is in the emergency room with COVID-19. The rest are fighting off other types of respiratory illnesses such as RSV.