Rising COVID-19 hospitalizations in St. Louis area delaying care to other patients

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    FARMINGTON, MO (KMOV) — Stacey Springstead should be getting treatment in St. Louis for complications to the place on her skull where doctors removed a brain tumor. Instead she’s lying in limbo in an emergency department exam room at Parkland Health Center in Farmington.

“They’re saying here that they call several times a day to inquire about whether there’s a room or not,” said Springstead.

It was back in 2003 that Springstead said doctors removed a benign brain tumor. Recently, she had surgery to remove some of the medical hardware doctors installed at the time. Springstead went to Parkland Health Center on Saturday because of drainage from the incision and the headaches she was experiencing.

“I might have a possible infection, going by my CT scan,” she said.

Since Saturday, Sprinstead said her doctor at SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital has been trying to get her transferred but hasn’t been able because of a lack of available beds.

News 4 reached out to SSM Health about Springstead’s situation and received this statement:

“SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital is constantly working to accept and safely accommodate all patients in need of care, as well as working within and outside our SSM Health organization to appropriately place patients in area hospitals and appropriate care facilities. Across the St. Louis region, our hospitals continue to face these challenges of limited number of beds and the rising number of COVID cases and hospitalizations.

At SLU Hospital, we have begun to scale back some of our elective procedures that require ICU stays, and we, along with our regional partners, participate in daily evaluations of our bed capacity, surgical case capacity and staffing capacity to meet our patients’ needs.”

Emergency department exam rooms aren’t designed for long-term patient stays. Springstead said the room doesn’t have a bathroom, nor a television.

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