A 17-member federal medical support team is being deployed to Mercy Health Muskegon. The team includes one doctor, registered nurses and other health care workers.
“It’s an awesome early Christmas present for us.”
Gary Allore is President of Mercy Health Muskegon. He says the hospital has been running at - and over - capacity of 270 patients over the past five weeks. During that time the volume of hospitalized COVID patients was 65 to 70%.
“I think they looked at the situation in Muskegon, and really considering along the lakeshore and in Muskegon, we’re the sole community hospital so I think that played into it, too.”
Allore tells us from the Emergency Room to the I.C.U. healthcare workers are exhausted. Federal reinforcements will assemble for 30 days beginning patient treatment Dec. 30th. It comes as COVID patient trends are declining. A temporary reprieve before a potential post-holiday surge, the expected spread of the Omicron variant and flu. Mercy Health Muskegon is thankful national backups are on the way. It joins Grand Rapids’ Spectrum Health, Dearborn’s Beaumont Hospital and Saginaw’s Covenant Healthcare receiving assistance. Teams there have been extended an additional 30 days.
