Banner Health warns Arizona hospitals stretched to limit

PHOENIX (AP) — Phoenix-based Banner Health is at its most overwhelmed since the pandemic began, leading the company’s officials to issue a warning Tuesday that its hospital system may have to eventually choose who can receive care.

Some of Banner’s hospitals in one of Arizona’s largest health care systems are operating above 100% capacity, said Dr. Marjorie Bessel, the company’s chief clinical officer.

COVID-19 hospitalizations make up one-third of Banner’s hospital patients but there there is also an extremely high volume of patients who delayed preventative care or are in the late stages of an illness, she said.

The company has 18 hospitals in Arizona. As of Tuesday, 10 of them were running above 100% of their ICU staffed bed capacity. Five of them were operating 100% above staffed in-patient bed capacity, according to spokesman Corey Schubert.

Banner has had to postpone medical procedures, new patient visits and non-urgent appointments because of the intensive care unit needs.

Hospital professionals are are prioritizing medically necessary surgeries like mastectomies and gall bladder removals. The hospital system — with assistance from over 2,600 travel nurses who travel around the country filling staffing needs — is trying to counter a hemorrhaging of Banner staff nurses who retired, left the field or took non-bedside jobs .

Hospitalizations across the state for COVID-19 overall inched up Tuesday from a day earlier to 2,764 patients as of Monday, according to the Arizona state health department’s coronavirus dashboard.

The dashboard also reported 2,168 additional cases and 203 deaths. Most of the fatalities stemmed from inspection of death certificates going back several weeks.

Since the pandemic started, the state has reported 1,320,748 confirmed coronavirus infection cases and 23,243 COVID-19 deaths.