DESOTO COUNTY, Miss — DeSoto County officials are requesting assistance from the state to open a field hospital. Tuesday, it got approval for a state-run COVID-19 testing location. This comes amid a rise in COVID cases and high demand at doctor offices.
“Our hospitals are in crisis mode they’ve asked for our help,” said Board of Supervisors President Mark Gardner.
Some doctor offices, pharmacies, and clinics are providing COVID tests, but many can’t keep up with the demand.
“With the surge in cases sometimes it’s taking people days to get a test,” said Gardner.
The board president believes a Mississippi State Department of Health testing location, which was approved Tuesday, is needed to respond to a spike in COVID-19 cases in DeSoto County.
“They said the testing facility will be outsourced we do know it will be five days a week,” Gardner said. “I’m not sure yet when it will start.”
Leaders said hospitals in DeSoto County are overwhelmed and the ICUs are full. There are currently no beds available. There were 82 patients at Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto on Monday. Supervisors approved requesting a field hospital to help with the strain on Methodist Olive Branch and Baptist-DeSoto. The state set up two field hospitals in Jackson.
“The virus is going back and forth across state and county lines,” commented Gardner. “We’ve got a lot of sick folks. ICUs are full, our emergency rooms are full our ambulances are waiting for hours when they get to the emergency room.”
A tentative location for the testing facility is at the health department in Hernando. Possible locations for the field hospital after state approval is the old jail in Hernando or the Landers Center parking lot.
“We’ve had ambulances that took other emergent care patients in and had to still there for hours with the patient in the ambulance because the emergency room staff was just overwhelmed,” Gardner said.