COLORADO, USA — On Friday, 94% of Colorado's ICU beds had someone in them. Some hospitals are trying to keep beds open by postponing surgeries that aren't urgent.
Bob Sampson said he was supposed to have surgery at UCHealth Anschutz this coming Friday to remove a tumor, and then a nurse called.
"She goes, 'Well, I wish I had better news for you, but we have to cancel your surgery because of COVID,'" Sampson said.
The Vietnam veteran began a fight for his life in 2019 when he was diagnosed with cancer. It's now stage 4, and the Boulder resident is living with a tumor in his lung.
"I am in this to survive and extend life, and I'm really healthy other than this tumor inside me," he said.
According to UCHealth, nearly 90% of COVID patients in their ICU on Nov. 11 were not vaccinated. Sampson said he's received three COVID-19 vaccine shots, and he's upset that people who didn't get any are now taking up a bed he needs to recover.
"That is really disturbing, actually, because they had a choice and now they have negated my choice," he said.
According to a spokesperson for UCHealth, its facilities, like hospitals across the state, are caring for near-record numbers of patients.
"We are closely monitoring the capacity of our hospitals, and to ensure we have available beds and capabilities to care for any patients who may have an urgent or emergency health care need, we have been proactively postponing most non-urgent and non-emergent surgeries and procedures that would have led to an admission to one of our hospitals," said Dan Weaver, Vice President of Communications at UCHealth.
Weaver said they have been doing everything possible to avoid postponing surgeries for patients with cancer.
Annie Feighery's 14-year-old daughter, Vivi, was supposed to have surgery at Children's Hospital Colorado in October to correct a 95-degree curve in her spine. Her family said it was canceled the day before because the hospital didn't have enough ICU beds available.
Vivi's surgery was rescheduled for Monday.
"We did everything right that we could," Feighery said. "Everything that is happening now is out of our control."
The original date for the surgery was planned months in advance. The family hopes the rescheduled procedure will actually happen.
"COVID-19 has made it so much harder," she said. "And this surgery and the surgery's cancellation and rescheduling has made it even harder."
A spokesperson for Children's Hospital Colorado said deferring non-emergency surgeries is one option they can employ if they are experiencing high capacity constraints. They sometimes need to postpone surgeries to keep beds open for kids requiring emergent hospitalization.
"When this occurs, we work diligently to reschedule any deferred surgeries as soon as possible," a spokesperson for Children's Hospital Colorado said. "Given the continued high patient volumes and ongoing community spread of COVID and other viruses impacting children, we anticipate continued significant strain on our hospitals for the foreseeable future."
All different types of patients, including COVID-19, trauma, and other respiratory patients, are forcing hospitals to make tough decisions. It's a consequence that is impacting people who tried to do everything right.
"I feel an urgency to have surgery," Sampson said. "I want to get this thing done and out of there and recover."
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