WINONA Minn. – A severe shortage of nursing home workers is delaying transfers of recovering patients out of hospitals. The result, said Winona health executive Rachelle Schutz, is that hospitals are backed up and in some cases running out of available beds. In short, the clog at nursing homes is contributing to the state’s shrinking hospital capacity, Schuktz said in a KWNO radio interview. Statewide, she said, long-term care beds are down 25% from before the Covid pandemic. “So what happens is then there are patients in hospitals that are ready to be discharged and there’s no place to go,” Schultz said. “There’s no long-term care bed anywhere.” The hardship is rippling through the Minnesota health-care system, she said: “You look for where is there a bed available? And that could be one of two states away. Her Winona hospital, Schultz said, has been spared from a full-capacity back-up so far but some transfers have been to far-away long-term facilities. “ We have seen that where people are being moved far away from family because there’s just no long-term care bed available.”
Schultz. Nursing homes are operating with Covid-crippled staffing and not accepting hospital patients ready for discharge.