ConnorEl
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Rural Areas Send Their Sickest Patients To The Cities, Straining Hospital Capacity
Registered nurse Pascaline Muhindura has spent the last eight months treating COVID-19 patients at Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri.
But when she returns home to her small town of Spring Hill, Kansas, she's often stunned by what she sees, like on a recent stop for carryout.
"No one in the entire restaurant was wearing a mask," Muhindura says. "And there's no social distancing. I had to get out, 'cause I almost had a panic attack. I was like 'What is going on with people? Why are we still doing this?'"
Many rural communities across the U.S. have resisted masks and calls for social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic, but now rural counties are experiencing record-high infection and death rates
Critically ill rural patients are often sent to city hospitals for high-level treatment, and as their numbers grow, some urban hospitals are buckling under the added strain...
... Hospital leaders have continued to plead with Missouri's Republican Governor Mike Parson, and with Kansas's conservative legislature, to implement stringent, statewide mask requirements but without success.
Parson won the Missouri gubernatorial election on Nov. 3 by nearly 17 points. Two days later at a COVID-19 briefing, he accused critics of "making the mask a political issue." He says county leaders should decide whether to close businesses or mandate masks.
"We're going to encourage them to take some sort of action," he said Thursday. "The holidays are coming and I as governor of the state of Missouri am not going to mandate who goes in your front door."...
... Now, a recent local case spike in the Kansas City metro area is adding to the statewide surge in Missouri, with an average of 190 COVID patients per day being admitted to the metro region's hospitals. The number of people hospitalized throughout Missouri increased by more than 50% in the last two weeks.
Some Kansas City hospitals have had to divert patients for periods of time, and some are now delaying elective procedures, according to University of Kansas Hospital chief medical officer Dr. Steven Stites.
But bed space isn't the only hospital resource that's running out. Half of the hospitals in the Kansas City area are now reporting "critical" staffing shortages. Pascaline Muhindura, the nurse who works in Kansas City, says that hospital workers are struggling with anxiety and depression.
"The hospitals are not fine, because people taking care of patients are on the brink," Muhindura says. "We are tired."