Photo and quotation below from Salt Lake Tribune source. Note that the photo is from June.
“(Photo courtesy of Intermountain Healthcare) Hospital staff at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray care for patients with COVID-19 in June. Now, standard intensive care units in the state are full, as they cope with a surge of coronavirus patients, said Dr. Eddie Stenehjem. To staff overflow ICUs, Intermountain is moving doctors and nurses from other departments and has hired 200 nurses from out of state.”
Like other hospitals around the US, it sounds like it is for ICU staff. Since, those are specialized nurses, the shortage in that area may be true.
More from article:
“As of Thursday, there was room for about 45 more ICU patients statewide, said Greg Bell, president of the Utah Hospital Association.
But past data shows how quickly those beds are likely to be filled by new COVID-19 patients alone. As of Thursday, Utah’s ICUs had been caring for an average 192 coronavirus patients each day for the past week. That reflects a gain of about 45 patients in just two weeks — and that’s excluding the 60 to 70 percent of ICU patients who are there for some other illness or injury.”
I have friends who work in Utah at the UofU and IMC hospitals. Those hospitals are not any busier than the Primary Children’s Hospital and Huntsman Cancer Institute. I’ll text them for more details.
Also read the comments in the article. I guess we need to take into account that this is a very liberal newspaper with liberal readers. It sounds like they want to blame the conservatives (and Mormons) for not caring enough. Or something…