Samaritan’s Purse relieves some of the pressure on UMMC during the COVID-19 crisis

Medical teams with Samaritan’s Purse are logging their sixth day of treating COVID-19 patients in a parking garage at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.  The Delta variant surge has stretched the facility to the brink.  Nurse Kelly Sites, the Team Lead with Samaritan’s Purse says 50 medical and support staff are working over 12 hours per day to help.

“We can do supportive care and help keep them comfortable and keep them coughing and moving if we get them early, do some therapeutic things and if they get worse, keep good monitoring systems in place, so we can monitor their status because sometimes it takes a while to get super sick and sometimes it can go very fast,” said Sites.

As patients are admitted to the medical center, Sites says some are transferred to their field hospital. There are 32 hospital beds, a five bed ICU and she adds they can intubate patients.  Sites says the staff is from all over the country. 

“Our medical staff works in their local hospitals wherever they live.  We put our staff through trainings.  We’re very strict with our protocols and we train them a lot on how to keep themselves safe,” said Sites.

Sites notes nurses stay with the patients and only leave for breaks and lunch.  The field hospital also has its own pharmacy.  She says they will be here until mid-September then determine if UMMC needs them to stay longer.