OBSERVER Photo

Right before the storm of COVID-19 in the middle of March, the Brooks-TLC Hospital System in Dunkirk was in the midst of buttoning up the Lakeshore Hospital in Irving that closed its doors Feb. 2. Running the two health-care campuses during the year of 2019 led to a $20 million loss for the private, not-for-profit operation.

Controlling finances — not viruses — was the priority then.

Today, however, administrators for the second-largest hospital system in Chautauqua County are clearly focused on the all-out crisis that not only faces the world as well as this region.

In a meeting with the OBSERVER this week, officials expressed concerns with the quickly mounting infections taking place across the county.

“It’s starting to pick up,” said Mary E. LaRowe, president and chief executive officer in regard to the growing census numbers in her facility that totaled eight COVID patients with two in the Intensive Care Unit.

Later that day, Gov. Andrew Cuomo came out with another edict that would likely impact all state hopitals — increase capacity by 25%. Cuomo, who was seen as a national leader during the beginning of the virus in the spring, knew trouble was coming.

For Western New York, the hospitalization numbers are starting to become staggering and disconcerting. According to data from the New York Forward Daily Hospitalization Summary, 548 individuals — the most since the start of the pandemic — are patients in health-care facilities. To offer some perspective, only 30 days ago — on Nov. 11 — the number hospitalized was 134. That is a 409% increase since Veterans Day.

As of Thursday, that same site noted 73% of available beds were filled while 52% of Intensive Care Unit beds are currently occupied.

How close is Chautauqua County to a tipping point?

According to information gathered by The Post-Journal and OBSERVER, there are some 320 in-patient beds before the Cuomo recommendation to increase. In announcing 101 additional cases, the county Health Department noted 23 being hospitalized here.

For now, capacity does not seem to be an issue. However, there is true concern in the north county where only two facilities offer beds: Westfield Memorial Hospital and Brooks-TLC in Dunkirk.

Because the Lakeshore facility was closed, bed numbers total only 43 with 39 being in Dunkirk. UPMC Chautauqua, according to its website, has 277 beds available.

Administrators across the state have been put on notice. In a letter sent by Howard A. Zucker, state commissioner of health, he told managers this week to expect increasing virus numbers through mid-January. “However, most experts agree that COVID will continue to be an issue until the number of people currently expected to be vaccinated reaches critical mass, which is somewhere between June and September,” he said.

Through the first wave, many health-care facilities here had only a whiff of the trauma that was being experienced elsewhere across the nation and state in regard to caring for COVID patients. In May, Brooks-TLC said it had treated only seven virus patients through the first two months.

Now, as holiday cheer is dampened by second-wave fear, Zucker seeks attention to detail to keep the system from reaching a breaking point. “For hospitals, we learned that the surge in COVID cases at times overwhelmed the capacity of individual hospitals,” he said. “Some hospital systems were not prepared to balance patient load among other facilities in their system in a timely fashion. This led to individual hospitals experiencing difficulties. It is imperative that individual hospital systems are prepared to balance the volume of incoming patients prior to their being admitted into a hospital.”

Numbers have been everything since the crisis began in terms of breaking down each infection. Zucker’s most important figures will come from HERDS — the Hospital Emergency Response Data System.

Each institution must monitor those statistics closely. “It is incumbent upon individual hospitals and hospital systems to alert the state to issues and situations prior to the hospital reaching 80% capacity, or in surge a situation, prior to reaching 75% of the implemented surge capacity,” Zucker wrote.

On April 26, 263 patients were hospitalized in Western New York, with most being in Erie County, and that was chaos. As of Thursday, that figure is more than double.

“We all learned much from the spring surge of COVID cases,” Zucker said. “It is our responsibility now to implement those lessons.”