A central Kentucky hospital, like many across the Commonwealth, is seeing a large number of respiratory patients. Baptist Health Richmond is at or even above capacity this month. Lora King is the director of emergency, cardiovascular, and behavioral health services at the Madison County hospital. For some patients, King said family doctors or a trip to an urgent treatment facility might be better.
“We could just absolutely push through a little bit quicker if we were seeing those that were a higher acuity, meant for the emergency department. So, we do encourage patients to use urgent treatment center or to utilize primary care physicians,” said King.
King said the emergency department at Baptist Health Richmond has been seeing 20 more patients than typically seen this time of year.
She noted the hospital has more patients than during the peak of COVID.
“During COVID we still didn’t see the volume that we are seeing right now. At that time, everybody was kind of told shelter in place, stay at home. Although we were seeing an increase it wasn’t to the increase that we’re seeing today. Unfortunately seeing 20 more patients in a 24 hour period in a 19 bed ER has just been very difficult,” said King.
King said Lexington area hospitals are sometimes not able to take transfers because they are at capacity.
