Verde Valley Medical has room for 111 beds
Gov. Ducey’s executive order allows for 150% expansion of hospital capacity

VVN file photo

VVN file photo

COTTONWOOD — With Gov. Doug Ducey’s executive order that allows hospitals to expand their capacity to 150%, Verde Valley Medical Center will be able to make room for 111 beds, said Trista MacVittie, chief experience and communication officer with Northern Arizona Healthcare.

VVMC is currently a 74-bed hospital.

Should Verde Valley Medical or Flagstaff Medical reach their capacity, Northern Arizona Healthcare is “proactively collaborating across the system to increase bed capacity while also staying in contact with other healthcare providers across the state to monitor capacity,” MacVittie said.

As of 9:15 a.m. Wednesday, 35 patients have beds at Verde Valley Medical Center, MacVittie said. Of those, two are positive for COVID-19, with another five patients waiting for their test results.

Flagstaff Medical would be able to expand to 317 beds.

Coronavirus patients at Northern Arizona Healthcare receive what MacVittie called supportive care.

This “can mean intravenous fluids and supplemental oxygen, to support the patient while his or her body fights the virus,” she said. “There isn’t a specific antibiotic regiment because it’s a virus and not a bacterial infection.”

How long are coronavirus patients staying in the hospital? According to MacVittie, it depends how sick they are.

“It could be anywhere from two to three weeks if they are on a ventilator,” she said. “It they are only oxygen, it might be just a few days.”

COVID-19 patients at Northern Arizona Healthcare are fed according to same guidelines for feeding isolation patients.

“Our nutrition services team delivers the tray to the unit and the clinical team caring for the patient takes it into the room,” MacVittie said. “The food is served on cardboard and with plastic utensils so that it can all be thrown away after the patient eats.”

Since coronavirus patients are on isolation precautions, they do not leave their room “unless medically necessary,” MacVittie said. But they are “not expected to stay in bed any more than an average patient.”

-- Follow Bill Helm on Twitter @AZShutterbug42


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