Reduced Capacity, Less Beds At 2 University Hospital Locations

BEDFORD, OH — Two University Hospital locations will have reduced capacity as the health system responds to the increasing needs of the COVID-19 pandemic.

UH Bedford and UH Richmond will both have fewer inpatient beds moving forward as staff are shuffled to higher-volume hospitals. Each hospital will have 14 fewer hospital beds, according to Fox 8.

One in six hospitalized people in Ohio are COVID-19 positive, according to the Ohio Hospital Association. One in four people in intensive care units have the virus.

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As of Thursday morning, Ohio is averaging 6,600 new COVID-19 cases per day, more than 250 COVID-19 hospitalizations per day, and more than 20 intensive care COVID-19 admissions per day.

"Many hospitals in Ohio are experiencing more COVID-19 patients in their hospital and intensive care units (ICUs) than they have seen at any point in the pandemic, including this past December’s peak. And even in hospitals that are not experiencing quite the same high volumes they experienced in December, their situation is more dire than in December because of intense staffing shortages," the Ohio Hospital Association said in a September letter to Gov. Mike DeWine.