COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina National Guard and several state partners have been working on a "Hospital Surge Plan" to prepare the state for its peak of coronavirus hospitalizations.
At a press conference this week the S.C. National Guard announced a three-tier plan to help medical facilities combat the coronavirus.
“What our plan will allow us to do is to add an additional 3,000 beds to give us an approximate number of 9,000 beds, no later than May 5th of this year,” said Adjutant General Van McCarty.
The National Guard plan, coordinated with nearly 10 agencies, would split resources into three tiers.
Tier 3 is critical care, meaning existing hospitals would continue to offer intensive care and other typical hospital treatments.
Doctor Eric Ossmann with Prisma Health explained the other tiers.
“So we're going to be, in the tier 2 hospitals, providing care that is appropriate for those paitents. It won't be as intense as we're going to provide in tier 3. But it will be professional, high quality care, on the level that South Carolinians will expect. The tier one facilities we're really using for quarantine and isolation of folks,” Ossmann said.
The S.C. National Guard, in partnership with military and private engineers, is currently inspecting 18 sites to use for the plan. The sites include arenas and shuttered hospitals, like Fairfield and Marlboro, for use as Tier 2 and 1 facilities, according to McCarty.
Under the current plan, General McCarty said the Guard is hoping to have facilities for the three tiers within five-miles of each other. However, he said those recommendations could change based on availability.
“This is a contingency plan, this is a plan we will have in place, ready to go, if those needs do develop. It's a plan that's built around the current hospital system that we have in the state. In the Upstate, here in the Midlands, in the Low Country, and the Pee Dee and throughout the state,” McCarty said during the press conference.
If patients at Tier 1 or 2 facilities became critically ill they would be transferred to traditional hospitals, which the plan classifies as Tier 3.
General McCarty said existing hospital staff would assist at the expanded facilities, along with contracted employees and potentially activated Guard men and women.
Between now and May 5th, the Guard plans to add 3,000 beds to South Carolina’s healthcare capacity, with the first 1,500 by April 28.
McCarty said repeatedly the exact details of the plan could change based on projections of the state’s peak and expected hospitalizations.
Individual hospital networks are also preparing to deal with the disease.
Prisma Health is telling its staff to be prepared for three different phases of response to the disease.
- Phase 1, which Prisma considers now through early May, includes increasing access to testing, gathering more personal protective equipment, increasing the number of beds at its facilities, and grouping COVID-19 patients together to decrease strain on supplies.
- Phase 2, which would be May through the Fall, is when Prisma says it will focus on suppression, including quarantines and isolation. They say they’ll continue to group patients and test regularly
- Phase 3, which could last through the winter, is a continued focus on suppression, but the hospital network hopes there is standardized medicinal treatment and vaccine trials
Prisma said they’re treating 90 confirmed positive patients with another 29 waiting for results. The network added they are adequately prepared for the current need of personal protective equipment.
Prisma said they recently purchased equipment which would allow them to decontaminate and reuse N95 respirators, if needed.