And the two largest hospitals in Michigan—— Which plans to merge sometime this year -Help is being received, and the hospital in northern Michigan is also awaiting federal assistance.

The War Memorial Hospital in Sault Ste. Marie also required 22 nurses and two doctors to help ease the pressure on the staff, the President and CEO of Shang Peninsula Hospital David Yahn told Crain’s.

“Our nursing staff has 25% of the vacancies,” Yahn said. “We need these extra hands to intervene within a period of time, so that our employees can breathe a sigh of relief, and let our employees regain their sanity.”

The War Memorial currently has 14 COVID-19 hospitalized patients, down from the peak of 23 last spring. Jahn said that the number of non-COVID cases in the hospital’s emergency department is overwhelming its employees.

In the past four months, the emergency room at the War Memorial has averaged about 1,500 visits per month, which is higher than the average monthly visits of 1,200 in 2018 and 2019. Yaen said that the hospital has only one emergency doctor every 12 hours in shifts.

“We can handle 30 to 40 patients per day, but we now have 60 or more patients,” Yahn said.

Yaen said that he hopes that federal medical staff can assist the War Memorial in providing monoclonal antibody therapies for COVID patients. The hospital has implemented approximately 300 time-consuming therapies in its emergency room. Antibody therapy For high-risk patients, the threat of death caused by the virus can be reduced by as much as 70%.

“Several nurses and a doctor (from the federal government) running a monoclonal clinic will really help reduce the pressure on our emergency room doctors,” Yahn said.

For various reasons, rural hospitals are crowded with patients.Some spillovers are caused by the supply chain that transfers patients to other hospitals for treatment, because there is a Shortage of ambulance drivers and paramedicsOther problems include the lack of staff in nursing homes and psychiatric hospitals that cannot accept patients, leaving these patients trapped in hospital beds.

Other rural hospitals simply cannot afford to pay more and more overtime and the huge bills of human resources agencies because During the pandemic, reimbursements did not align with higher costs.

“At this point, we can’t continue to pay temporary employees…We can’t continue to pay for these expenses, and we can’t get additional reimbursement from Medicare, Medicaid, or Blue Cross Blue Shield,” Yahn said. “We must allow our employees to take vacations, or at least save them from extra shifts.”

MDHHS did not confirm whether it has applied for federal assistance for hospitals in the northern part of the state.

Jahn doesn’t know the timeline either.

Michigan reported 17,008 new COVID-19 cases and 83 deaths on Monday, an average of 5,669.3 cases in three days. Of the 83 deaths announced on Monday, 32 were determined during the review of records.

— Editor’s note: The previous version of this story did not include the second request for federal personnel approved on Wednesday. The current version is accurate.

This story first appeared in our sister publication, Crane’s Detroit business.