The state has activated emergency crisis protocols that allow 20 hospitals to ration care if needed as Alaska reports among the nation’s worst COVID-19 infection rates of recent weeks, straining the state’s limited health care system.
The declaration last Saturday covers three facilities that had already announced emergency protocols, including the largest hospital, Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage, and facilities across the state, including hospitals in Wrangell and Petersburg.
Though Wrangell Medical Center is covered under the order, “We don’t anticipate we will see any changes,” Carly Allen, hospital administrator, said Monday. “We are well prepared.”
The state order also covers the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium’s larger hospital in Sitka.
The state action and the decision to participate by individual hospitals recognizes that Alaska’s health care system is connected, and stressed, Allen said.
Patients in Wrangell with serious illnesses or injuries often are flown to larger hospitals in Alaska or Outside.
“Today’s action recognizes that Alaska has an interconnected and interdependent health care system,” the state health department said in a statement.
Factors that led the state to activate crisis-of-care standards include scarce medical resources at some facilities, limited staff and difficulty transferring patients because of limited bed availability. Other factors include limited therapies and oxygen supplies.
The crush of new COVID cases was particularly acute around Alaska in late September. According to data collected by Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, one in every 84 people in Alaska was diagnosed with COVID-19 from Sept. 22 to Sept. 29. The next highest rate was one in every 164 people in West Virginia.
The Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corp. in Bethel announced the activation of crisis-care guidelines three days before the state decision, on Sept. 29, the same day the facility was operating at full capacity.
“Unfortunately … as a result of the current surge in COVID-19 cases requiring hospitalization and limited resources statewide, we are now in a position of making these difficult decisions on a daily basis,” Dr. Ellen Hodges, the hospital’s chief of staff, said in a statement.
Fairbanks Memorial Hospital activated its own crisis-care policy a day before the state because of a shortage of beds, staff and monoclonal antibody treatments, along with the inability to transfer patients.
“This is in response to a very serious surge of COVID in our community,” Fairbanks Chief Medical Officer Dr. Angelique Ramirez said in a statement.
Statewide, less than 64% of eligible residents have received at least their first dose of a vaccine. The Fairbanks North Star Borough is the third worst region for vaccination rates in Alaska, at just 55% of eligible residents with at least one shot.
In Wrangell, 67% of eligible residents had received at least their first dose of a vaccine as of Tuesday, according to the state COVID website.
The decision in Fairbanks came the same day the state reported 1,044 new cases, 108 of them in the Fairbanks area. The hospital says 35% of its patients last Saturday were being treated for COVID-19.
Ramirez said many factors drove the decision to move to crisis standards, including community spread caused by the low vaccination rates and a high number of patients waiting to be admitted.
“This impacts all patient care, those with broken bones, traumas, heart attacks, strokes, COVID, anyone needing medical care,” Ramirez said. “The care we are able to provide is highly fluid and can change day by day and even hour by hour depending on the availability of resources within our system and stateside.”
Heidi Hedberg, director of the state Division of Public Health, encouraged all residents to wear masks and get vaccinated.
“Every action you take helps prevent COVID-19 from spreading and protects you, your family, other Alaskans and our health care system. No one wants to use crisis standards of care guidelines,” she said.
In addition to assisting hospitals in deciding which patients take priority, crisis standards of care provide guidance and liability protection for health care workers working with scarce resources.
Since March 2020, there have been 114,000 total COVID-19 cases as of Tuesday in Alaska, which has a population of about 731,000. More than 24,000 new cases were reported in September as the Delta variant drove a spike in cases in Alaska, which has never had a statewide mask mandate.
State officials reported more than 3,000 new infections in the first four days of October.
The state health department reported Tuesday that 2,465 people have been hospitalized since the start of the pandemic tally last year, and 582 residents and non-residents have died.
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