Health & Fitness
ICU Bed Availability In Eastern PA: See Data By County
Find out how many of your county's intensive care beds are available, as hospitals fill up with COVID-19 patients.
PHILADELPHIA, PA — Several counties in the Philadelphia area and the rest of southeastern Pennsylvania are down to only a few remaining intensive care beds, as hospitals work to weather a surge in coronavirus cases.
On Thursday, state health officials urged Pennsylvanians to stay home, saying the commonwealth's hospitals are currently at risk of not being able to take all the patients that need care.
"If you do not have to go out to the grocery store or the pharmacy, please stay home," said Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine. "By staying home, within your household, you can help us avoid that scenario where we could potentially run out of beds."
Find out what's happening in Bensalemfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Among the hardest-hit counties in our region are Lehigh, where only 2.7 percent of adult ICU beds were open Thursday, according to the state's coronavirus data portal, and Delaware County, which sat at just 8.3 percent of those beds open.
In Montgomery County, officials said Wednesday that all but two hospitals were at capacity. The county had just 14 percent of its adult ICU beds open on Thursday, according to the state portal.
Find out what's happening in Bensalemfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Hospital officials were reporting not just problems with available beds, but with staffing concerns, as some battled COVID-19 outbreaks among their own workers.
Last week, Lehigh Valley Health Network reported that coronavirus hospitalizations in its network had equaled peak levels from the spring and were continuing to rise.
Here is a look at the percentage of adult intensive care hospital beds that remained available Thursday in the counties in the Philadelphia region, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health COVID-19 data portal:
Lehigh: 2.7% (5 beds)
Delaware: 8.3% (8 beds)
Lancaster: 8.9% (7 beds)
Montgomery: 14% (48 beds)
Berks: 14.1% (10 beds)
Northampton: 15% (3 beds)
Philadelphia: 17% (132 beds)
Bucks: 24.7% (19 beds)
Chester: 31.9% (30 beds)
Like what you're reading? Sign up to get daily Patch emails and stay in the know on local news: https://patch.com/subscribe
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.
