National Guard called up, MaineHealth procedures postponed as COVID surges

Courtesy / Maine National Guard Gov. Janet Mills activated the Maine National Guard, some of whom are shown here at a recent ceremony in Presque Isle, to help with care during the current COVID-19 surge.

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By Jessica Hall

Gov. Janet Mills on Wednesday called out the Maine National Guard to help health care workers keep up with surging COVID-19 cases, while MaineHealth said the increase has forced it to postpone some medical procedures.

Mill said she was activating up to 75 members of the Guard to provide nonclinical support to nursing facilities and swing-bed units that accept patients discharged from hospitals with capacity challenges. The guardsmen also will help administer monoclonal antibodies to prevent serious illness from COVID-19 and keep Mainers out of critical care units.

The deployment in these support staff roles is expected to last through the end of January, Mills said.

Mills also requested federal COVID-19 Surge Response Teams on behalf of two Maine hospitals — Maine Medical Center in Portland and Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston — under the Biden administration’s COVID-19 Winter Response Plan.

If approved, teams of federal clinicians, including physicians, nurses, and certified nursing assistants, will supplement existing staff and members of the Maine National Guard to provide care for those with COVID-19.

The moves come as hospitals reconfigure their staffs and departments to handle the surge in cases.

MaineHealth, the state’s largest health system, said procedures that can be safely postponed are now being rescheduled. Patients have recently been seeing long waits for care in both hospitals and medical practices.

Maine Medical Center in Portland has had to close a total of 12 operating rooms in order to free up staff to care for patients with COVID-19 and other critical illnesses. At times this week, the hospital has run out of critical care beds and has had to divert patients away from its emergency department.

The hospital said about 50% of surgeries are now being rescheduled. The operating room closures free up care team members to work in other areas. but also create additional bed space for limited use.

As of Wednesday, there were a record high 379 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Maine, including 117 in critical care and 60 on ventilators. There were 42 available intensive care unit beds available in Maine. The sustained surge of COVID-19 driven almost entirely by the Delta variant. The vast majority of people hospitalized in Maine are not fully vaccinated against COVID-19, Mills said.

“From the Ice Storm of ’98 to the COVID-19 pandemic, members of the Maine National Guard have always stepped up to serve our communities and our state, adapting to meet whatever challenges are in front of them,” Mills said. “Today, in the midst of this sustained surge and with the potential for even more people to become sick and hospitalized, we are once again in need of their help.”

Dr. Andrew Mueller, CEO of MaineHealth, said hospitalizations for COVID-19 are at an all-time high across the system, which serves 1.1 million people in 11 counties in Maine and Carroll County, N.H.

“As much as we hoped we were wrong, this appears to be a fairly steady trend as a result of the Thanksgiving holiday. So we don’t think we’ve seen the full breadth of this surge and probably won’t for another two to three weeks, and then of course we fear that will lead into what will ultimately become a post-Christmas and New Year’s surge,” said Mueller.

The demand for staffing resources to deal with COVID at MaineHealth’s hospitals, as well as increased volume due to people delaying care earlier in the pandemic and the ongoing labor shortage in health care nationally, have all had an impact on outpatient care across the region as well. Patients can expect long-wait times for all kinds of care, including laboratory services and visits to primary and specialty care providers.

The capacity challenges are not limited to Portland. Ryan Knapp, chief medical officer at Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway and an active emergency medicine physician, said his small hospital is also full.

“Now what we’re seeing is there is a significant burden in the rural counties like Oxford County, where our hospital is, that have very low vaccination rates and, therefore, we’re seeing very high COVID infection rates,” said Knapp.

The governor continued to urge Maine people to get vaccinated as the best and most effective way to protect their health and those around them and to take steps like wearing a mask when in indoor public places or crowded outdoor places.