As the coronavirus pandemic swelled around the 160-bed Mayo Clinic hospital, the day was dawning auspiciously. Two precious beds for new patients had opened overnight. At the morning “bed meeting,” prospects for a third looked promising. Better yet, by midmorning, there were no patients in the Emergency Department. None. Even in normal times, a medium-size hospital like this can go many months without ever reaching zero.
Small rural hospitals in Missouri and Kansas are increasingly spending hours searching for facilities they can transfer patients to because they are struggling to cope with the surge in coronavirus cases. As the region’s hospitals fill up with COVID-19 patients, smaller hospitals like the one in Holton, Kansas, are finding it difficult to treat patients who don’t have the disease but still need care.