FARMINGTON – State and federal health agencies are sending 70 caregivers to San Juan Regional Medical Center because of a surge in COVID-19 patients in the northwestern corner of New Mexico in the past month.
Over half of all patients at the hospital in Farmington tested positive for COVID-19 and San Juan County reported 3,657 positive virus cases in October, more than the previous four months combined, the Farmington Daily Times reported.
The number of COVID-19 patients being treated at the hospital had been steadily climbing for weeks but rose dramatically between Oct. 27 and Nov. 3.
As of Wednesday, the hospital was treating 88 COVID-19 patients and expecting that number to grow.
The state Department of Health is sending 34 caregivers to San Juan Regional, and the hospital is also getting a 36-person team from the National Disaster Medical System of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The state’s deployment was authorized after San Juan Regional enacted crisis standards of care because of the large number of COVID-19 patients.
A public health alert pushed to cellphones on Nov. 3 called on residents to help reduce the “enormous strain on our health care system” by wearing a mask, socially distancing and getting vaccinated.
San Juan Regional singled out several ZIP codes in Aztec, Bloomfield and Farmington as contributing to COVID-19 spread, saying that the rising COVID-19 patient count at the hospital was because of “significantly low vaccine rates.”
“It’s so important for us as a community to depoliticize all the rhetoric in our country, our state and our community around this pandemic,” said Jeff Bourgeois, San Juan Regional’s president and CEO, in a statement. “The best way to prevent contracting the disease, prevent hospitalization, prevent an ICU admission, and ultimately prevent mortality related to COVID-19 is to seek a vaccination.”
