By Michelle L. Price Associated Press
Friday, September 3, 2021
LAS VEGAS — Nevada hospitals are seeing a severe shortage of nurses, and some Northern Nevada hospitals are nearly out of staffed beds for patients.
State health officials said Thursday that Nevada, like much of the country, is grappling with a nursing shortage.
Nevada had a shortage of nurses even before the pandemic, when each wave of cases and crush of hospitalizations left nurses demoralized and drove some to leave the profession. Nevada, like other states, is struggling to attract traveling nurses to help bolster their staffs.
Dr. Chris Lake with the Nevada Hospital Association said Thursday the issue has been compounded by the number of people who are unvaccinated and end up in the hospital or intensive care unit.
Lake said Northern Nevada has been further squeezed by the Caldor Fire, which prompted South Lake Tahoe’s hospital to evacuate dozens of its patients to nearby hospitals.
Lake said some hospitals throughout the state may have to turn away ambulances and send them on longer drives to more distant locations, such as redirecting them to Reno from Carson City or across traffic-clogged freeways in the Las Vegas-area.
Paramedics, he said, may have to stay at the hospitals longer after transporting someone, waiting with patients until the hospital has staff who are available to take over.
"That takes the ambulance out of service and unable to respond to other calls for help," he said.
To avoid putting further strain on hospitals, officials urged people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and practice measures such as social distancing and wearing face masks, which are required indoors for much of the state, regardless of vaccination status.
The dire warnings about hospitals come as the state has started to see a slight improvement in the number of new cases of COVID-19 reported. After a sharp increase in new reported cases in June and July, the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 started to level off in August and in the past few days has dropped very slightly.
The statewide, two-week positivity rate for COVID-19 tests was 12.2% — still well above the World Health Organization's recommendation of a rate of 5% or lower before lifting mitigation restrictions.
To mitigate the spread, the governing board of the school district serving metro Las Vegas voted early Thursday to generally require that teachers and other employees be vaccinated for COVID-19.
The 5-1 vote by the Board of Trustees of the Clark County School District to impose the mandate came after a seven-hour meeting that started Wednesday. District Superintendent Jesus Jara will next draw up a plan to implement the mandate.
Officials said the plan will include a process for requesting exemption from the vaccination requirement for either medical conditions or for sincerely held religious beliefs. There is no deadline for the plan to be implemented.
"I trust the medical experts … I understand the fear," Trustee Lola Brooks said while making the motion for the vote.
"We are experiencing a substantial surge in COVID-19 infections in our entire community. COVID-19 knows no geographical limitations, " Jara said. "The district has an obligation to protect the health of our children, our staff and the public that we serve, from this virus."
Remaining members of a crowd thanked Danielle Ford, the sole board member to vote against the motion, and yelled expletives at other board members, KVVU-TV reported.
Jara will develop the plan through consultations with union representatives and others, board members.
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