Hospitals cope with COVID caseload

Franklin Foundation Hospital has had heavy occupancy at times during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it has never reached full capacity.
Kevin Romero, the hospital’s director of marketing, business development and co-director of physician services, said Monday that they have had “quite a few” COVID-19 patients during their pandemic and have converted many of their rooms to cope with the influx.
“We’ve been fairly lucky and not been at full capacity,” he said of the 22-room critical care facility. “We’ve been close to it a few times but not quite at full capacity. We’ve never turned anybody down.”
He said that the hospital has consistently had one to two COVID-19 patients in house at one time.
One method the hospital is using in treating patients to keep them out of the hospital is monoclonal antibody therapy, which the hospital began around Dec. 30.
In November, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in an emergency use authorization, approved the treatment of the combined antibodies casirivimab and imdevimab, according to a release from the government agency.
Monoclonal antibodies, as defined by the FDA, are proteins made in a lab that imitate the capability of the immune system to defeat things, including viruses.
“Casirivimab and imdevimab are monoclonal antibodies that are specifically directed against the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, designed to block the virus’ attachment and entry into human cells,” the FDA release said.
The FDA says these antibodies should be used to treat “mild to moderate COVID-19” for those ages 12 and older who weigh approximately 88 pounds and above who “are at high risk for progressing to severe COVID-19. This includes those who are 65 years of age or older or who have certain chronic medical conditions,” the FDA’s release said.
At Franklin Foundation, Romero said monoclonal antibody treatments are done five days a week for patients who meet particular qualifications.
“We’re doing those infusions on a daily basis to help COVID patients to get better, to recover faster,” he said.
The treatment also is being used at the Ochsner Health System, Dr. Robert Hart, the health system’s chief medical officer, said on a video conference call with media Monday.
Both Ochsner and Franklin Foundation are using remdesivir in treatment of hospitalized patients, too.
At Ochsner, the health system’s COVID count declined from 580-590 a week ago to about 520 as of Monday. The hospital system was between 640 and 650 patients on Jan. 4.
System wide, the hospital has released about 9,000 COVID-19 patients.
“We are continuing to see folks being discharged successfully, and the therapies … just continue to be effective,” Ochsner Health CEO Warner Thomas said on Monday’s media call.
Back at Franklin, Romero said that the hospital has what is needed to treat COVID-19 patients.
“But if they have certain comorbidities that we feel it would be safer for a patient at a higher level of care — Lafayette, New Orleans — we would ship them out,” he said.