y: James Battaglia
Posted: Nov 22, 2021 / 04:56 PM EST / Updated: Nov 22, 2021 / 04:56 PM EST
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CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. (WROC) — FF Thompson Hospital in Canandaigua temporarily diverted patients twice last week, amid hospital bed shortages across the state.
Hospitals alert the state when they want to make a diversion, and the state alerts emergency medical services to bring patients elsewhere for a set period of time.
Thompson representatives said they enacted diversions on November 16 and November 18. They said it was necessary because they had a number of patients in the emergency department requiring intensive care, but no room in the ICU to move them out of the ED.
“That being said, we would never turn away an ambulance,” said Anne Johnston with UR Medicine Thompson Health. “So if an ambulance were to arrive with a patient needing emergency care, we would absolutely provide the care.”
Thompson representatives said they could not transfer their ICU patients to other area hospitals, because there were no available ICU beds in all of Western New York. This, they said, was because many hospital patients have been waiting to be placed into nursing homes, but there were no beds available at nursing homes in the region.
Thompson representatives said:
Our two diversions last week (on 11/16 and 11/18) were due to several patients in the Emergency Department who were awaiting admission to the hospital. This included several ICU-level patients, and all of our ICU beds were full. When we tried to transfer these patients, there were no available ICU beds in western New York. As has been the case for several weeks, there are many patients in the hospital awaiting nursing home placement, and there are no nursing home beds available in the region. Diversion gives us a chance to decompress for a short period, diverting EMS to other hospitals.
UR Medicine Thompson Health statement
According to the New York State Department of Health, “A diversion request does not mean the hospital ED is closed, but usually means the current emergency patient load exceeds the Emergency Department’s ability to treat additional patients promptly.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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