NBC News analysis of data from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) revealed that all pediatric hospital beds in Rhode Island were occupied on Sunday and Monday.
Rhode Island is among the states most severely affected by the country's aggressive surge of pediatric respiratory infections. As of Monday, November 7, 76 percent of pediatric hospital beds were occupied across the United States. Pediatric hospital beds in Washington, D.C., were at 98 percent capacity, while beds in Arizona were at 96 percent capacity.
Dr. Frank Overly, Hasbro Children's Hospital's medical director for pediatric emergency medicine, said that his hospital is beyond capacity now. He added that the hospital's 29 pediatric beds in the emergency room were occupied on Monday, and there were 29 additional patients in the waiting room.
RSV surge causing spike in pediatric cases at Hasbro
Like most states in the country, Rhode Island is seeing cases of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), COVID, flu, and other respiratory viruses all at the same time. According to Overly, RSV accounts for a large share of pediatric cases at Hasbro Children's, but flu cases at his hospital are also rising.
He said it is getting up to over 40 families in the waiting room. He added that wait times had reached numbers they had never seen before. He noted that patients who don't have life-threatening conditions wait for as long as eight or nine hours at Hasbro, which is the only children's hospital in the state of Rhode Island.
Overly said that he took on work at the hospital over the weekend that would ordinarily be split among several staffers. He said that he cleaned beds, discharged patients, and fetched new children from the waiting room to oversee and treat.
Overly said that normally, nurses, medical assistants, secretaries, and technicians, would help with these processes, but everyone was busy caring last weekend for other patients.
Strained hospital capacity affecting entire country
While some adult hospitals in Rhode Island treat pediatric patients with milder cases, kids requiring more intensive care are being directed to pediatric hospitals in other states, such as Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.
Hasbro Children's does not turn away their patients once they arrive, so the hospital uses beds at Rhode Island Hospital's adult emergency department and other flex spaces to care for as many children as possible.
Teresa Paiva Weed, president of the Hospital Association of Rhode Island, said that strained hospital capacity is an issue in New England and the entire country.
Dr. Sarah Combs said that doctors at Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C. are seeing their patients in hallways and flex rooms formerly occupied by clinics. The attending physician added that the hospital is operating at or near capacity, and the waiting room is full.
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