The COVID-19 crisis continues at Alaska’s largest hospital, a week after it announced it’s begun rationing health care.
Dr. Kristen Solana Walkinshaw, chief of medical staff at Providence Alaska Medical Center, said patients have died while a rationed resource, such as continuous dialysis and intensive care beds, went to others. She said COVID-19 is even devastating labor and delivery.
“The place where things should be happy all the time, they’re having a really, really rough go,” she said. “Pregnant women with COVID are having terrible outcomes.”
She said she knows of pregnant moms who died of COVID-19. One, she said, had to go from delivery to the intensive care unit.
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Solana Walkinshaw said Providence is likely to continue on its crisis footing for at least another two weeks.
The state reported high numbers of new COVID-19 infections over the weekend.
From Friday through Sunday, the state tallied a total of 2,108 new cases, 2,054 are Alaskans and the rest are nonresidents who tested positive in Alaska.
Also, on Monday, the state reported another five recent COVID-19 deaths — two Anchorage women in their 60s, a Homer woman in her 60s, an Anchor Point man in his 60s and a Sitka man in his 50s.
There are 198 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, according to state data, slightly fewer than on record-setting days last week. COVID patients continue to occupy about 20% of Alaska’s hospital beds and nearly half of the intensive care beds.
State health authorities say the vast majority of COVID patients in the hospital are unvaccinated.
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Liz Ruskin is the Washington, D.C., correspondent at Alaska Public Media. Reach her at lruskin@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Liz here.
