‘Who gets care and who does not’: KS hospital officials ask for emergency declaration

Wesley and Ascension Via Christi hospital executives are calling for a statewide emergency declaration that would allow hospitals to house more than their licensed number of patients, as surging COVID-19 cases perpetuate dire conditions in Wichita’s overcrowded ERs. Dr. Kimberly Megow, chief regional medical officer of Wesley’s parent company, HCA, spoke about the life and death treatment decisions being made during a video conference with hospital officials from across Kansas on Wednesday morning. “We continue to run well over 100% capacity in all of our ERs. Some of them are 200 or 300% capacity,” Megow said, referring to a metric based on the number of staffed ER and overflow beds available.
Source: Wichita Eagle