Nurse, doctor emphasize need to get vaccinated against covid

Erin Bolton, a registered nurse and director of quality and regulatory at Jefferson Regional hospital, told Rotarians that the state is seeing at least three times more new covid patients per day than there were a year ago. 
(Pine Bluff Commercial/Byron Tate)
Erin Bolton, a registered nurse and director of quality and regulatory at Jefferson Regional hospital, told Rotarians that the state is seeing at least three times more new covid patients per day than there were a year ago. (Pine Bluff Commercial/Byron Tate)

Erin Bolton told of the harrowing experience of getting the news more than a year ago that Jefferson Regional had admitted the state's first covid patient, and then she transitioned to the hospital's current stress as the coronavirus spikes again.

Bolton, a registered nurse and director of quality and regulatory at Jefferson Regional, told the Downtown Rotary Club this week that, when the call came in on March 11, 2020, from the state Health Department, the hospital was prepared for the news -- but still shocked to receive it.

"We felt like we would be ready," Bolton said. "But we were not ready to be the first. We felt that that honor would go to UAMS or Baptist."

Within minutes, she said, word arrived from Gov. Asa Hutchinson's office that the governor would be holding a news conference.

"So we grabbed a TV and watched," she said. "And he basically outed us."

Bolton said the hospital had not even had a chance to get the word out to its own employees before the news conference occurred."

Hutchinson told the state that the first case had been discovered "at a hospital in Pine Bluff," Bolton said. "Pine Bluff is not like Little Rock where there are several hospitals. There's only one place it could be in Pine Bluff."

Bolton said the hospital jumped into action, setting up a command center in one of the hospital's classrooms -- a place "where we lived" for several weeks.

She said that before the pandemic, one could leave work at work. But once the coronavirus hit and patients were filling beds and some dying, and staff members were becoming infected, "covid impacted every facet of our lives."

Since that day, the hospital has treated 900 covid patients, not counting the ones who passed through the emergency department. The staff also has conducted 36,500 covid tests, with 325 staff members testing positive and having to quarantine. In all, Jefferson Regional has given 11,000 vaccinations, and hospital officials have conducted more than 20 vaccination clinics, including in the four school districts.

Despite those efforts, she said, only a little more than 1 out of 4 Jefferson County residents have been vaccinated. And some 12.5% of those tested locally have been positive for the virus. The governor has been trying to get that number down to between 5% and 10%, she said.

"Obviously, we haven't seen that for several weeks," Bolton said.

The number of people recently hospitalized at Jefferson Regional for covid-19 has been in the mid-to-upper-20 range, equaling the maximum of 28 patients in the hospital when infections were peaking before the first of the year.

Of the 26 in the hospital at midweek, 12 were in intensive care and four were on ventilators, and some 25 hospital employees had tested positive, she said.

"The hospital is full and our [emergency department] is full," she said. "We don't have a lot of choices as to where to send these patients."

On Thursday, Hutchinson declared a statewide health emergency, saying that hospital beds were full around the state and that some patients were being cared for in ambulances as they awaited space to open either in Arkansas or another state. He also is calling a special session of the Legislature in an effort to amend Act 1002, which bans school districts and other public entities from requiring masks.

Hutchinson said it was important to change the Republican-backed law because students under 12 are at risk of infection because they have not been cleared to be vaccinated.

To support his claim, Hutchinson pointed out that Arkansas Children's Hospital had seen an increase in children hospitalized with covid-19, with several of those under the age of 12.

Dr. Amy Cahill, an obstetrician/gynecologist at Jefferson Regional, told the Rotarians that the hospital had learned much from the experience of treating Patient Zero, as the first patient has been referred to. She said that that one patient alone infected more than 40 people, including several hospital staff members.

Cahill also said that the delta variant, which is proving to be much more contagious and more serious than the original strain, is causing serious health problems for younger populations. She said the average age of those initially hospitalized was 49, but that recently the average age has dropped to 38.

Bolton said the state was experiencing about 600 new cases a day a year ago, which was when decisions were being made to cancel face-to-face school. Now, she said, there are three, four and almost five times that number of new cases each day.

"And we're talking about sending students back to school," she said.

Cahill emphasized that almost all the people hospitalized now have not been vaccinated, and the same is true for those dying of covid.

Hospital stays also are now more serious, she said. Previously, a covid patient would spend just two to three days in the hospital before being sent home. Now, patients are staying as many as 10 days, she said.

Asked about the potential for older and immunocompromised patients to receive a booster, as is being considered in the United States and is happening in Israel, Cahill said she hoped that, when and if a booster is offered, it acts as a more potent defense against the delta variant. As she spoke, she crossed her fingers and thrust her hand into the air.

Bolton said the problem with having so few people vaccinated is that the coronavirus is able to move through a population and mutate along the way. Now, there are upsilon and lambda variants, she said.

"So get your vaccine," Cahill said.

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