Federal help officially arrived at two Michigan hospitals today. The Department of Defense has sent two teams of doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists to hospitals in Dearborn and Grand Rapids.
Dr. Darryl Elmouchi is President of Spectrum Health West Michigan, which is receiving some of that help. He said the hospital system is already overwhelmed with patients. It has had to delay 11 hundred surgeries in recent months and denied 700 transfer requests from other hospitals.
“One of the reasons that people should care about this even if they’re not terribly personally concerned about COVID, is it could impact any other part of your health. And then when you look at the caregivers, people are really struggling. This is needless death, day after day.”
Elmouchi and other hospital leaders say the vast majority of COVID patients in their hospitals are unvaccinated.