Eight months ago, Dayton Children’s said it began a surge plan in the event that the area hospitals became overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients and the pediatric hospital needed to accept adult patients to support the surge volume.
“Luckily the COVID cases at that time remained low, and the plan simply sat on a shelf. In recent weeks, COVID cases in our community have dramatically spiked. Weeks ago, our adult partners had roughly two dozen hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Today, those numbers have increased almost ten-fold, and they are nearly at capacity,” Dayton Children’s stated.
“If helping them allows our neighbors, our friends, our coworkers or our family members to be treated in a hospital instead of a created space such as the Dayton Convention Center, then we are all-in. Our community is calling; we must answer the call,” stated Dr. Adam Mezoff, chief medical officer and vice president for care transformation at Dayton Children’s.
Parents of teens and adults up to age 21 are also being encouraged to use Dayton Children’s for emergency and urgent care services whenever possible in order to reduce the strain on the adult hospitals. Dayton Children’s has always treated patients up to age 21.
At this time, the hospital stated it is not encouraging those over age 21 to come first to Dayton Children’s for care; if the adult hospitals need to implement their surge plan they will contact Dayton Children’s to have a patient transferred.
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