Fifteen health care providers dispatched by the federal government arrived in Pueblo this week to help alleviate hospital capacity pressures at a hospital there, and the state is in the process of requesting two additional teams.

The team is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Disaster Medical System, which can send medical personnel, equipment and supplies to parts of the country facing various crises. The team at Pueblo’s Parkview Medical Center arrived Sunday and “includes a physician, advanced healthcare practitioner, nurses, paramedics and a respiratory therapist along with support personnel,” hospital spokeswoman Racheal Morris said. 

The team “will be able to work for 14 days,” she said. “We have requested an additional 14 days but are uncertain if we will be granted those additional days.”

Pueblo, like much of the state, is facing a wave of new COVID-19 hospitalizations amid the state’s ongoing pandemic surge. Parkview had 92 COVID-19 patients Wednesday; the hospital, according to Pueblo County Public Health, is at 90% of its capacity. So, too, is St. Mary-Corwin Medical Center.

Colorado may top 2,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations, marking worst peak of pandemic

The additional personnel “allows us to expand our bed capacity and help with the increase in patient volume,” Morris said. Parkview requested the help, and the arrival of the team has added 20 new beds to the facility, Gov. Jared Polis said Wednesday. A spokesman for the state Department of Public Health and Environment said the state is “seeing the most requests” for additional staffing “from the Denver Metro area, southeast Colorado and northeast Colorado.” 

But reinforcements, even from out of state, remain limited.

“As other states are experiencing severe healthcare worker shortages, fewer contract healthcare workers are available for facilities that normally rely on contract staff to augment staff,” the spokesman said.

The team is the first federal group of relief providers to arrive in Colorado, and the state has requested two more. Aid is desperately needed: The current hospitalization crush is exacerbated by COVID-19 but is pressed more fundamentally by staffing challenges. There are fewer intensive care beds statewide right now, for instance, than at nearly any point in the pandemic, a function of burnout and exhaustion facing the entire nation’s health care workforce.  

The wages of the provider teams will be paid by the federal government, the health department said.

Statewide, there are fewer than 700 beds available: As of Wednesday, there are 82 ICU beds left, plus 541 acute care beds, according to state data. The majority of those patients are non-COVID-19 cases; state officials have said increased movement by Coloradans has brought more trauma cases, and delayed care earlier in the pandemic means more “standard” hospital cases, often with patients in worse condition.

The state has requested two more federal teams, Polis told health officials from across the state Wednesday. Those reinforcements, plus out-of-state contractors, will be critical to the state as it looks to add 500 more hospital beds in the coming weeks. Cara Welch, spokeswoman for the Colorado Hospital Association, said that level of expansion will require all of the state’s health care system’s available resources.

In addition to bringing in federal and out-of-state contract providers, Colorado has “authorized temporary licenses for out of state and retired workers, as well as recent graduates awaiting their final exams,” the health department spokesman said. Eric France, the state’s chief medical officer, activated the crisis standards of care for staffing Tuesday, which allow providers to move into roles that they don’t normally fill, among other changes.