Trying Times at St. Mark’s Amidst Another COVID Wave

Statewide, stories of hospital overcrowding have emerged in the wake of the recent COVID resurgence.

Fayette County has not been immune.

“It’s not been pleasant. Our hospital is no different than what you are seeing from the hospitals in Austin,” said Mark Kimball, the CEO of St. Mark’s Medical Center in La Grange. “Our health care workers are tired. They’ve been working against this for 18 months.”

As of Sunday the Texas Department of State Health Services said there were 184 active cases of COVID in Fayette County.

Kimball said St. Mark’s has had staff members out with COVID, leaving the ones left behind trying to pick up the slack to care for a growing number of cases.

At times recently, Kimball said, the hospital has been so overwhelmed that they’ve had to go into “diversion,” which means when an ambulance wants to bring a patient to St. Mark’s, they are redirected to a different hospital.

It’s less an available bed issue, but rather of staffing, Kimball said.

With their own employees out with COVID, there simply aren’t enough workers to care for the additional admissions.

Right now the inpatient census is hovering around 20 daily at St. Mark’s.

Kimball said the low vaccination rate in Fayette County is part of the problem.

“The vaccination rate in our area is extremely low. The inpatients that we have that are COVID positive, 90-percent of them were unvaccinated. People that have been vaccinated, their symptoms are not as severe,” Kimball said.

St. Mark’s is still administering the vaccine and there’s been a slight increase in vaccinations in the last few days.

As of Friday, St. Mark’s was still performing elective surgeries as well, but Kimball said that was being evaluated every 24 to 48 hours and could change.

And he foresees worse times ahead.

“I think we’re going to be in this situation for three months or longer. I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg,” Kimball said. “School is starting back, this variant D (Delta) is highly contagious and spreading very quickly.

“Even though we’re doing the best we can, I worry about the long term effect of our staff. They are burned out and I worry about keeping our staff safe.”

Kimball’s advice?

“The best prevention is vaccination,” he said. “The second best prevention is wearing a mask.”