Hospitals in crisis in least vaccinated state: Mississippi

By LEAH WILLINGHAM
September 7, 2021

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — As patients stream into Mississippi hospitals one after another, doctors and nurses have become all too accustomed to the rampant denial and misinformation about COVID-19 in the nation’s least vaccinated state.

-snip-

Mississippi’s low vaccinated rate, with about 38% of the state’s 3 million people fully inoculated against COVID-19, is driving a surge in cases and hospitalizations that is overwhelming medical workers. The workers are angry and exhausted over both the workload and refusal by residents to embrace the vaccine.

Physicians at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the only level one trauma center in all of Mississippi, are caring for the sickest patients in the state.

The emergency room and intensive care unit are beyond capacity, almost all with COVID patients. Moriarity said it’s like a “logjam” with beds in hallways, patients being treated in triage rooms. Paramedics are delayed in responding to new calls because they have to wait with patients who need care.

In one hospital in Mississippi, four pregnant women died last week, said state health officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs. Three of the cases required emergency C-sections and babies were born severely premature.

-snip-