CLEVELAND (WJW)– The Cleveland Clinic will be taking proactive measures to save hospital beds as Ohio sees a consistent uptick in coronavirus cases.
Although admissions are quickly increasing, the hospital system has sufficient bed space available.
“As of Friday, we are rescheduling some elective procedures in order to allow more capacity for procedures that require hospitalizations. As you know, some surgeries can be done in an outpatient setting and they can go home the same day so those are continuing ongoing,” said Dr. Raed Dweik, chair of the Respiratory Institute at the Cleveland Clinic.
“The ones that require hospital admissions after surgery, we are rescheduling those definitely for this Friday and Monday. And we will be reassessing over the next few days, over the weekend, whether we need to extend this further.”
The Clinic stocked up on personal protective equipment and said it believes it currently has sufficient supply.
Caregivers have been working hard for the past eight months and the Cleveland Clinic said they are doing the best they can to take care of them.
“We have hotlines. Those that test positive, we take care of them at home and their families. So we have multiple ways that we are taking care of our caregivers, but definitely it’s taking a toll on all of us,” Dweik said.
The news comes after Cleveland sets a new record for COVID-19 for the second-straight day. On Wednesday, the Cleveland Department of Public Health reported 194 new confirmed cases and one additional death.
The Ohio Department of Health said there have been 267,356 total confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19, and 5,623 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. It is presumed that 191,950 have recovered. In the last 24 hours, 5,874 cases, 76 fatalities, 253 hospitalizations and 36 intensive care unit admissions were reported to the state health department.
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