Munson Medical Center in Traverse City has seen an increase in COVID hospitalizations over the past four to six weeks.
Michigan’s statewide hospital patient census and bed tracking database says, Monday, 18 cases of COVID were reported at Munson Medical. Six people were counted in the Intensive Care Unit and a 68 percent bed occupancy. Those numbers have since increased.
“We currently have 44 COVID cases in our health care system, 27 of those are at Munson Medical Center right now,” says Brian Lawson, Regional Marketing and Communications Manager. “We’ve even seen a slight bump this week, at least at Medical Center, of additional 9 hospitalizations or beds that are taken up by COVID patients.”
Lawson was not able to confirm how many of those cases, if any, were children. Delta variant cases have been increasing for younger populations and cases are being seen in populations across Northern Michigan.
“We know that it’s in Northern Michigan. We know that it spreads very quickly and as we’ve seen those cases be discovered in Northern Michigan. We have seen the hospitalizations go up so that is definitely impacting the numbers that we’re seeing right now,” says Lawson.
The summer is usually busy for Munson and the surge is an added challenge to healthcare workers.
“It has been a long 18 months for the staff across the healthcare system these are about as difficult as circumstances as frontline health care workers have seen maybe ever in Northern Michigan,” says Lawson.
© 2023 - 910 Media Group
