Hospital officials in Montana are calling their current surge of the Delta variant the worst they’ve seen during the entire pandemic.
Health care workers in Montana’s capital are overwhelmed amid a surge in COVID-19 patients, with critical care resources at capacity at St. Peter’s Health hospital forcing the facility to roll out crisis standards of care. Officials said Thursday that the circumstances under the deadly Delta variant are so dire, they have exceeded previous crisis points in the pandemic “For the first time in my career, we are at the point where not every patient in need will get the care that we might wish we could give,” St. Peter’s Health chief medical officer Dr. Shelly Harkins said. “By almost every single measure we are in a far worse position than we ever were in the winter of 2020, during our first surge.” Hospitals in Idaho, Washington and Texas have all reached out to St. Peter’s Health for their own crisis needs, trying to find space for patients who can’t find beds in their home states.
