Unvaccinated patients stress Gig Harbor hospital, administrator says. ‘We are full’

The “vast majority” of patients being hospitalized at St. Anthony Hospital for COVID-19 symptoms are unvaccinated, the hospital’s chief administrator says.

“You have seen what is happening nationally, and I can tell you anecdotally that it’s the same here,” said Dino Johnson, the chief operating officer at the Gig Harbor hospital. “Those who are requiring admission because they are getting that ill are generally unvaccinated.”

Johnson declined to give a number, but he said the 122-bed hospital has been filling beds “in the high twenties and low thirties” with COVID-19 patients in the last eight weeks, and “the vast majority of those” have turned out to be unvaccinated.

“Even though the new delta strain is infecting some vaccinated people, they are not getting very ill,” he said, while unvaccinated patients often are so ill they must be put on oxygen support or intubated.

Johnson would not go into mortality rates, but he did say “we have seen some very, very sad outcomes” at St. Anthony.

New job for former nurse

Johnson spoke to The Gateway last week, two months into his new job as chief operating officer at the hospital. The 38-year-old administrator comes here from a similar position at St. Francis Hospital in Federal Way. He has been with the Franciscan Health System for 16 years, beginning his career as a nurse.

The recent COVID-19 surge has added new stress to a Western Washington hospital infrastructure already under strain, Johnson said.

“We are full, and everywhere else is full, all up and down the I-5 corridor,” he said. “As a generalization, hospitals along I-5 function very full all the time, especially in winter. When there’s a stressor like COVID, it just has that much more of an impact.”

St. Anthony has accepted some transfer COVID patients from other hospitals, including St. Michael in Silverdale, and has sent some elsewhere, including to St. Joseph in Tacoma. That’s normal, Johnson said, because hospitals strive to use all available beds in the most efficient way. To that end, Franciscan has a “mission control center,” also in Gig Harbor, which tracks capacity.

The latest data from the Tacoma-Piece County Health Department shows there have been 86,645 confirmed coronavirus cases since the outbreak began last March, and 812 people have died. In the Gig Harbor area, there have been 3,393 cases and 18 deaths. On the Key Peninsula, the figures are 1,038 cases and nine deaths.

The pandemic has had four distinct peaks since March of 2020, the TPCHD data show, and the current one is the largest yet, with more than 300 new cases and several deaths added daily. In the past week, however, the curve has appeared to slacken.

‘Data show vaccine works’

“Things are improving slightly in terms of the overall numbers, but I’m not even comfortable saying we’ve passed our surge,” Johnson said, because the situation “is still very fluid.”

“Certainly, we want to message to our folks that the vaccine is definitely helping people not get as sick, and many people who are vaccinated are not getting” the disease, he said. While people refusing the vaccine have that right, he added, “We are in support of getting the vaccine, because the data show that it works.”

The recent surge has been hard on frontline health care workers here as elsewhere, Johnson said. He acknowledged that St. Anthony has suffered a “higher turnover rate than we normally see in our industry” in the last 18 months. He declined to talk about numbers.

“It’s been a very busy and stressful couple of years, as we tried to learn about the disease and how to treat it,” he said. “Beyond health care, there has been a lot of workforce turmoil in America right now — a lot of people quitting their jobs or changing careers, and we have not been shielded from that.”

“Most” of the hospital’s staff have been vaccinated, Johnson said, although he again declined to give numbers. A few who have left cited the state’s vaccine mandate for health workers as “one possible reason” for getting out of health care, he acknowledged.

(Dr. Michael Anderson, chief medical officer, for what is now called Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, said Monday that “over 95% of our employees across our facilities have now met the vaccination requirement through full vaccination or an approved exemption.”)

Early in the pandemic, in September of 2020, an outbreak of COVID-19 among patients at St. Anthony led to the infection of three employees, the quarantine of 17 others and the mass testing of everyone who works in the hospital. All staff continue to wear masks and follow procedures laid down by the Centers for Disease Control and other authorities, Johnson said.

COVID difficult to treat

The pandemic has been frustrating for medical professionals, Johnson said, because there’s no cure, and its effects are maddeningly random.

“That’s what makes COVID so difficult to treat,” he said. “You just don’t seem to know who is going to get very sick and potentially die, versus those who don’t even know they had it.”

“There is just this super-wide variation,” he added. “And if you are unvaccinated, you are kind of rolling the dice.”

Johnson said he’s proud to be working in a community where he also lives. Married with three children, he has resided in Gig Harbor for 10 years, commuting to his former job in Federal Way.

“That was very motivating to me to come here,” he said. “There is kind of a sense of fulfillment you get from working in the community where you actually live.”

Johnson received a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Pacific Lutheran University and a master’s degree in Healthcare Administration from the University of Washington.

He joined Franciscan Health in 2005 as a bedside nurse within the Emergency Services department, according to the health provider. Over the course of the next fifteen years he has held progressive positions as a nurse educator, process improvement consultant, manager of emergency services, director of emergency services, and chief nursing officer prior to becoming chief operating officer.

St. Anthony is fourth in size of the system’s eight Western Washington hospitals, and it is the newest, having opened in 2009. (St. Michael in Silverdale opened in 2020, but replaced an existing hospital in Bremerton.)

Johnson said the hospital is known for its orthopedic, urology and oncology departments, and “has the busiest surgeons in the Franciscan system.”

The hospital took delivery last week of two robotic surgical devices that will enable surgeons to operate using minimally invasive techniques that speed patient recovery, involve less pain and leave smaller scars, he said.

Neighborhood numbers

Here are neighborhood COVID-19 totals as of Friday, Oct. 14. The numbers are cumulative since March 2020, and include persons who have since recovered.

▪ North Gig Harbor/Canterwood (census tract 072505) 649

▪ Wollochet (census tract 072408) 393

▪ Artondale (census tract 072406) 406

▪ Forest Beach-Kopachuck (census tract 072504) 229

▪ Sunrise Beach/Maplewood (census tract 072506) 101

▪ Bayview (census tract 072409) 156

▪ Fox Island (census tract 072410) 220

▪ Downtown (census tract 072507) 132

Key Peninsula

▪ Vaughn area (census tract 072601) 325

▪ Wauna/Purdy (census tract 072503) 335

▪ Mid-Peninsula (census tract 072602) 272

▪ Lakebay area, including McNeil and Anderson islands. (census tract 072603) 266

(Census tract numbers do not add up to the area total of active cases because some patients are presumed recovered.)

Vaccines available

In Gig Harbor, vaccine shots are available by appointment at St. Anthony Medical Center (253-792-2385); Costco, 10990 Harbor Hill Dr. (253-853-8609); and Walgreens, 12910 Harbor Hill Drive (253-853-9340).

Vaccine opportunities can also be found on the vaccine page at the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department website: https://www.tpchd.org/healthy-people/diseases/covid-19/covid-19-vaccine-information

This story was originally published October 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.