Mercy Health Muskegon Declares “Internal Disaster”

According to the state, there are 3,300 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Michigan, and variants are spreading throughout the state. Mercy Health Muskegon has declared an "Internal Disaster." However, they say COVID-19 is NOT to blame. 

Fox 17 reports, on Monday of this week, officials at the hospital announced the updated status. On Tuesday, they released this statement,

On April 5 at 4:45 pm, Mercy Health Muskegon declared an "internal disaster" event for hospital capacity and patient surge. This internal declaration is similar to what a local government municipality might do in an emergency to allow for a wider range of options to handle the situation including staffing and resource allocation. Hospital leadership and Emergency Management are closely monitoring the situation. Mercy Health remains ready to meet the highest quality of care for our community during this event and patients should not avoid seeking emergency medical treatment at this time.

The state lists Mercy Health Mercy Campus at 81% capacity as of Tuesday afternoon. 11 of those patients are in the ICU. Officials at the hospital told WOOD TV, the overload of patients is caused by "generally sick people." Of the patients in the hospitals care, 29 are suffering from COVID-19. The hospital spokesperson did say that COVID-19 is a factor but not the driving factor.

Internal disasters are defined as events within the facility that jeopardize the health and safety of patients, staff, visitors and others.