Kansas health system declining to take patient transfers
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A major Kansas health system is declining to take patients from outside hospitals because it has too few open beds with cases of the faster-spreading COVID-19 delta variant surging.
Chief Medical Officer Steve Stites at the University of Kansas Health System said Wednesday that the space problem, which is now the system's main hospital in Kansas City, Kansas, is worse than it was last fall.
He said the hospital had open beds last fall because people were wearing masks and social distancing and doctors weren’t seeing other infections.
Stites said the health system is turning down between one and six patient transfers a day.