By Karen S. Carter
Tuesday, September 14, 2021 3:43 pm

The Delta variant is hitting Washington hard and has even reached into the smaller counties like Pacific County.

Many medical facilities are shuffling patients around to areas that have more hospital beds for COVID patients.

"Ocean Beach Hospital's volumes in general have increased in the last few months," said OBH Chief Nursing Officer Brenda Sharkey. "We have increased staffing and plan to open two more acute care beds to meet the needs of our community. There are times when it can be a few hours to transfer a patient; however, the Western Washington hospitals are working together to help ensure critical patients get the right level of care. What we need from the community is to get vaccinated, wear a mask and try to stay away from gatherings. We witness every day how contagious the Delta variant is. Our staff need the support of our community to help stop the spread of this deadly virus."

The Washington State Department of Health has put out a statement on hospital capacity and crisis standards of care. See below:

Hospital capacity is currently stressed across the state of Washington. The surge in hospitalizations is one that the Washington Department of Health (DOH), with its healthcare partners, has been monitoring closely. At this time, partners across Washington have undertaken a number of strategies to stretch resources and mitigate current challenges.

DOH has adopted and plans to use the ethical framework developed by the National Academy of Medicine, which stresses the importance of an ethically grounded system to guide decision-making in a crisis standards of care situation. It also defines surge capacity within the healthcare systems, during normal operations and disaster operations, as a continuum: from conventional to contingency and finally crisis.

The goal is to prevent ever having to utilize crisis standards of care anywhere in Washington.

DOH is working with state, federal, and private partners to mitigate Washington's health care surge by accessing additional volunteer and contracted resources, coordinating information sharing, and supporting efforts to shift patients to healthcare facilities that can best support their care. DOH encourages Washingtonians to help by doing their part such as getting vaccinated, wearing masks in crowded or indoor public places, and taking other preventive steps.

If you have any questions concerning Washington's statement, call the State COVID-10 Assistance Hotline at 1-800-525-0127.

The local COVID task force in Pacific County is working hard trying to keep everyone safe, but community members need to help out and keep themselves safe so it eases the workload.

"Overall statement on where we're at?" said Pacific County Department of Health and Human Services Director Katie Lindstrom said. "We are tired but committed to continue this important work. The increase in cases has really taxed our local resources (testing, case investigations, etc for us) and healthcare capacity in general. We are continuing to strongly recommend that people take steps to help prevent transmission of this virus (vaccination, mask wearing, avoiding large gatherings, etc). We also encourage people to take good care of their personal health (proper nutrition, maintaining a healthy weight, stress reduction etc) to reduce risks of severe illness in the case that they do contract COVID."

For local information go online to www.pacificcountycovid19.com.