Montana Man Almost Dies After Hospitals are Too Full to Admit Him
We've been seeing some alarming daily counts when it comes to COVID cases for Montana. Earlier this week we had the highest number of cases reported in a single day with over 2,200. If you really break the number down though, it was released on Tuesday and featured weekend numbers combined with Monday's count. It's still a lot, but just not a one-day total. And just today there were another 1,300 cases reported for the state.
How full are hospitals around Montana?
We're definitely seeing the same thing locally. In the last two weeks, Missoula has set records for the number of daily cases and the number of people hospitalized. I feel like I've just been in my own little bubble and haven't ventured out around the state much. But I saw a KPAX story today that told a tale of just how scary things can be right now.
Where do you turn when nobody will help?
This has been a pretty crazy week for a family from Colstrip. Janelle Loyning's husband Shawn was having issues and she urged him to go to the emergency room. That's when they realized just how taxed medical providers are right now. After trying locally and being turned away, Janelle started contacting hospitals around the state with no luck in getting her husband to be admitted. She says she was even told that if she showed up with her husband in the car, they would be turned away.
No staffing, no doctors, no rooms
Every place they tried was overwhelmed with COVID and wouldn't take Shawn as a patient. They finally lucked out when a place in Wyoming said they had room. Janelle says by the time they arrived at the facility the staff had to tend to Shawn with emergency care. He wasn't able to have immediate surgery because of other issues that had surfaced in the time it took to get to Wyoming.
What a scary experience. Can you imagine needing medical care and being told repeatedly that you would have to keep looking somewhere else? With the link to the story above you can read more and see the reply from the hospital in Billings when they were approached for comment.