‘The Perfect Storm’: Central Mass. Hospital System Runs Out Of ICU Beds

On Thursday’s Boston Public Radio, Dr. Eric Dickson described the current situation at UMass Memorial Health as “the perfect storm,” after its hospital system ran out of ICU beds on Wednesday — 18 months after the COVID-19 pandemic officially began.

Dickson is the President and CEO of UMass Memorial Health, which has hospitals in Worcester, Southbridge, Marlborough and Leominster.

“Right now we have 144 ICU beds online across the health care system, and we have 150 patients requiring ICU care,” he explained, adding “we’ll have some [patients] coming out of the operating rooms today that will also require care.”

The shortage, Dickson said, is being exacerbated by a handful of factors, including the ongoing nurses strike at Worcester’s St. Vincent Hospital, pandemic-related care backlogs and his assessment that central Massachusetts was “under-bedded” to begin with.

“It’s always been at a higher occupancy level than other areas of the state,” he told hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan. “And so you start off in a position of weakness ... then you add COVID.”

Twenty-two of the 144 ICU beds in the UMass Memorial Health system are currently occupied by patients struggling with the extremes of COVID-19, occupying roughly 15% of their total ICU bed capacity. Of those 22, 20 are not vaccinated.

Dickson said he doesn’t struggle with feelings of resentment towards those unvaccinated patients, but acknowledged the added layer of stress it’s brought to their system — particularly for nurses and physicians.

“They’re putting off vacations, they’re putting off days off. They’re voluntarily picking up extra shifts,” he said, adding that a spike in demand for mandatory worker overtime isn’t helping.

“Imagine going to work [and] taking care of incredibly sick people, planning for your day to be eight hours and you’ve got plans to come home, be with your children, be with your family,” he said. “And you know, going into work, that there’s a pretty good chance you’re either going to be asked to — or told — that you have to stay because we need you to take care of patients.

“That takes an emotional toll on you,” he said.

Still, Dickson insisted that those hearing tales of overworked healthcare workers should not interpret it as a reason to avoid seeking their own medical care.

“To anyone out there that’s worried about whether the emergency department will be able to take care of you: they will,” he said. "They’ll screen you very quickly for severe illness, and there may be a longer wait than usual if it’s not something life-threatening."

“But we’ll find a way to take good care of you,” he said.