Another March 8 is here in Shelby County but March 8, 2021, looks much different than its counterpart a year earlier, the day COVID-19 made its way to the Mid-South. One year ago today, it was announced; a woman who went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and contracted the virus and brought it back… Read More
While patients are waiting days in emergency rooms across the city now, there are no immediate plans to open the alternate care center at the former Commercial Appeal building. “There are plenty of beds available. The problem is with the nursing shortage, there are hundreds of beds we can’t staff now,” said Richard Walker, the… Read More
For months, the $51 million remake of the former Commercial Appeal building has offered the unsettling reassurance that the region has a reservoir if the hospital system gets overwhelmed. On Thursday, leaders at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, who will be in charge of running it, said they are worried about finding the… Read More
“We are seeing a considerable surge,” Dr. Richard Aycock with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare said. Those in the Methodist hospital system are again planning out worst case COVID-19 scenarios. “It’s an alternative staffing model so we can expand into more beds,” Dr. Aycock said. This, as Methodist’s total COVID-19 patients more than doubled since October… Read More
A month ago, no one expected the field hospital in the former Commercial Appeal building on Union Avenue would open. “Now, unfortunately, it’s looking more likely,” says Dr. Richard Walker, CEO of the alternative care hospital, the $51.3 million remodel that can accommodate 400 COVID-19 patients.
Dr. Richard Walker, a seasoned veteran of emergency medicine and student of history, instinctively sensed what horrors lay ahead one day in late February when a senior member of his team casually said: “You’re about to find out why your grandparents washed and saved tin foil.” As head of emergency services, Walker has seen every… Read More
With the number of COVID-19 cases rising and to handle more patients, many wonder if Memphis and Shelby County leaders are moving closer to opening the doors to the alternate care hospital, formerly the Commercial Appeal building on Union Avenue.
This week, the number of people in the city’s hospitals hit 71% of its COVID-surge capacity, a daunting high-water mark for a disease that spreads exponentially. At the current level of people moving about, doctors say the cases could jump from 500 to 1,000, overnight.
