NORFOLK, Va. — When it comes to COVID-19 patients, Sentara Healthcare said its workers cared for more than 13,000 in the hospital and north of 6,500 on an outpatient basis in 2021.
"We have seen five surges in Virginia. Three of those surges have been largely confined to the past year," said Julian Walker, said vice president of communications with Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association.
Walker told 13News Now that frontline workers are continuing to provide care while struggling with capacity, staffing and/or risk of getting sick themselves.
"It also comes with weariness, it also comes with burnout," said Walker.
Sentara described the surge, fueled largely by Omicron, as the most challenging yet.
Despite that, Sentara said its team's work led to a 12% COVID-19 mortality rate among hospital inpatients. Of which, the system estimated about 20% lower than a national average based on database tracking from IBM Watson.
Apart from inpatient care, hospitals have also played a key role in testing and vaccination efforts.
"Since the vaccination campaign began and continued into 2021, Virginia hospitals across the Commonwealth have administered more than 2,000,000 doses of vaccines," said Walker.
Sentara administered nearly 200,000 of those vaccines with a focus, in part, to reach minority populations in the community.
Back at hospitals, some health care workers could have the peak of omicron behind them as statewide hospitalization numbers slowly trend down.
"Still not out of the woods yet with this current surge, but the hope is that as we get out of January into February, we'll begin to see those numbers recede and head back down," he said.
Moreover, Walker cautioned that some individual facilities in the commonwealth remain at record-breaking levels.
On Thursday, Sentara also announced it will resume non-emergent surgeries, procedures and diagnostic testing starting on Monday, January 21.
However, that is based on each location's capacity. The health care system advised some of those services may still fluctuate.