Hospital beds continue to be close to capacity in Eastern Idaho

The Chief Operations Officer at Idaho Falls Community Hospital says their Intensive Care Unit can handle 35 COVID patients.

"We were up close to that. Just recently, we've had a couple of people we've been able to get out of the hospital and send them home," said COO Casey Jackman.

Though the hospital has not had to turn down patients, some services have been impacted.

"You know that's the problem when our intensive care is at capacity is our ability to be able to help out outlying hospitals that have been very sick patients goes down or goes away. It's difficult, because they have to continue looking to other places to be able to send those patients, but we do everything we can to be able to accept patients when they're being sent to us. But we have to able to continue to provide good safe quality care to our patients," said Jackman.

The hospital will soon be receiving a shipment of vaccines.

"Unfortunately they're not sending us enough vaccines for everybody in Idaho Falls. Matter of fact, they're not sending us enough for everybody in my hospital. So that's it's difficult, but we have to kind of take a look at who is at highest risk, whether it be based on where they work or their personal health, and do everything we can to keep the healthcare workers healthy so they can take care of our community," Jackman said.