By: Ted Dabrowski
Since the start of the pandemic, the risk of overrun hospitals has been one of the key reasons given for why Illinoisans should put up with what have been some of the most oppressive COVID policies in the nation. Lockdowns, school closures, remote learning, mask mandates, vaccine mandates and more have been part of the Pritzker administration’s many remedies for, among other goals, ensuring sufficient bed capacity.
But if protecting hospital capacity was a real goal, then one of the big questions today for the governor has to be this one: Why has he let the supply of ICU beds collapse by nearly 1,000 beds since July of 2020?
Total ICU beds, according to the Illinois Department of Health, have collapsed by 25 percent. The state had nearly 4,000 ICU beds in July of 2020. Today, that number has dropped to less than 3,000.
That’s intolerable given the governor, Chicago Mayor Lightfoot and others keep using the excuse of hospital capacity to extend their draconian policies.
At the onset of the pandemic, I argued on Public Affairs in March of 2020 that beds were the one area where I thought Gov. Pritzker could and should over-invest. Ensure bed and hospital capacity, but keep the economy and schools open. That was the best way to protect lives and livelihoods.
Instead, we all remember what happened. Pritzker locked down the state despite beds being available. Fast forward to today and fewer ICU beds means, for Gov. Pritzker, the excuse for even more COVID mandates.
Reporters should demand answers from the Pritzker administration and be ready to counter their excuses.
“Staff shortages” is likely to be their biggest defense for the lack of ICU bed capacity. But that response should open a whole new line of inquiry from reporters:
Why wasn’t the administration doing everything it could to increase staffing and bed capacity during periods of less stress on hospitals?
How many federal COVID relief dollars were spent on new staff, emergency training, and fast-track programs?
What amount of Illinois’ $3.6 billion in unused federal COVID support will now go towards increased hospital staffing?
Read more from Wirepoints:
- A loss of democratic norms in Illinois: 24 straight Executive Orders over nearly two years
- Why No Discussion Of COVID Treatments In Illinois?
- 2021 Census numbers are horrible for Illinois: Population decline second worst in country, behind only New York
- No “gathering outside the home” extends into winter break, school administrators tell parents
- Comptroller Mendoza claims Illinois paying its bills but needs more federal bailout to avoid a big one
- Illinois’ COVID-19 data: Daily update
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Because it’s not real.
When Faux-chi gets in front of cameras and acknowledges the “died with covid” versus “died from covid” realization should have set in…
He should be ridden out of town on a rail. And his goofy Dr. too…
There is no defense for Pritzker, or any of the elected officials in Illinois. Republicans have been silent on most of the serious issues facing the state. They talk tax cuts when the state is on a fiscal cliff. As for the hospital bed “shrinkage”, it’s totally irresponsible. If McCormick Place beds were still needed, he had money from the feds to keep it open, and do more around the state. This is a problem nationwide though. For profit entities close facilities that don’t make money, even if there are folks who need the care. Hey, that’s “rationing of care”.… Read more »
Total Number Illinois Hospital Beds:
Jan 1, 2022 = 31,420
Nov 3, 2020 = 35,032
Net decrease in statewide supply of total hospital beds = 3612.
Down 3612 beds in 14 months all during a “pandemic.” Could it be more irresponsible?
Tyranny. No other way to say it.
Its not that complicated. Hospitals can shrink and grow their ICU. There’s nothing especially magical about an ICU bed. Fact is, they grossly over estimated how many people would need ICU for Covid in 2020. They NEVER needed all those empty ICU beds. Now, they’re likely back where they normally are.
The total number of hospital beds is down 3600+…. it’s not about shrink/grow the ICU.
The entire statewide bed count has been slashed during a pandemic.
He wants to be re-elected. Sheep will follow but those who know what he is actually doing will not vote that way. Fearmongering is all he and other Dems know to do.
But a good portion of the reason of shrinking beds and hospital space is also because of firings due to not taking the shot.
A couple of other posters have brought up the main culprits for low ICU capacity in Illinois: certificate of need (CON) laws and nurse licensing laws. The CON law in Illinois has for a long time artificially depressed the number of hospital beds available in Illinois as preexisting hospitals can stifle competition before they even get off the ground. It is completely unjustifiable especially during a pandemic which stresses capacity. Unfortunately I don’t think it will ever be overturned as the hospital association and unions don’t want it. Maybe even more importantly though, lack of beds often just means a… Read more »
Pritzker has so politicized the pandemic, you just cannot take him at his word. Such a shame, but that is the reality.
I wish the article could explain how Pritzker took charge of the hospitals and eliminated 1000 beds. Don’t hospitals and health systems have CEO’s that might object?
I read a quote today that said the state’s official policy is “get the vaccine or go on a ventilator”. But with reduced capacity, it’s really get the vaccine or die, Trumper.
I understand your concerns. But how exactly did Pritzker take control of hospital of hospital beds from hospital CEO’s or even how did they get this past hospital chiefs of medicine. I read where it is claimed that hospitals MAKE money with more COVID patients. So CEO’s and hospitals don’t want to make money? Something doesn’t add up.
Eliminate 3600+
Because that is how he continues to control the population, it makes the numbers look worse to justify his lying, tyrannical rule! Just like hospitals are admitting covid positives so the government pays more money, more profitable to bill government than to have empty beds!
The first few lines from Ramses and Moses says it all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahkwQhQZWG8
Pritzker is an utter failure at handling this “crisis”. Remember when McCormick Place and the old Sherman Hospital in Elgin were temporarily setup for the surge. Then they took them down. Now we need them so where do people go? Old outdated antiquated Hospitals in shit areas that never could handle any kind of a surge. But now we can say “the hospitals are overflowing” If he was really serious about this there would be standalone COVID treatment centers around the state. There would be a 1 800 number set up for people to at least have some sense of… Read more »
I don’t know if there is enough staff to handle the standalone centers. If that is the case, they should say so, we all get it, there is a labor shortage
I agree about enough staff. But since this is the Biggest Crisis of our lifetime, we should be recruiting top scientists from all over the world to come in and help. Obviously, Pritzker is not serious about getting this under control.
Number of beds is tied to staff so the vaccine mandates are reason for labor shortage. Medical professionals with valid concerns over vaccine mandate with experimental therapeutics when most already had Covid. If antibodies were accepted, as in other countries, I wonder how many staff would return and thus more beds available.
Side note: I remember hospitals overloaded and at capacity with flu in 2018, this should not be a surprise this time of year.
https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/
In Illinois a politically-controlled CON (certificate of need) is required to open a medical provision facility such as a hospital or day surg center. Like “the Affordable care act”, this competition-stifling measure is politically labelled as “cost control” measure “to protect citizens “. Similar to GBOs (which are granted extraordinary safe harbor exemptions to federal anti-kickback laws), CONs grant a few political insiders extraordinary power over the life-and-death chances of Illinois citizens and the livelihoods of all Illinois docs and nurses. Employing “Travelling nurses” has been the stopgap solution at the big Illinois monopoly hospital systems…and that includes intra-State travel.… Read more »
What happened to Nurses licence compact bill that would make it easy for licensed out of state nurses to work in Illinois? Didn’t the dems/ unions kill the bill? Or did it pass? https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=2068&GAID=16&DocTypeID=SB&SessionID=110
It’s the democratic way…
Create a problem…
Then take advantage of it…
In other words, never waste the crisis you have created…
And he’ll never answer the question. All of the local media is complicit in the fraud that has been perpetrated by this administration.
I teach all my management trainees to beware of people whose solutions are worse than the problem.
Demonrat Commies: After almost 2 years of this tyranny, if you can’t fix this, you are the problem…
Q: “Why wasn’t the administration doing everything it could to increase staffing and bed capacity during periods of less stress on hospitals?”
A: Dems at Federal, State, and Local levels were too busy spreading fear porn and dividing society (this time along jab status) while decreasing staffing by firing non-jabbed healthcare workers.
It follows bed inventory is managed downward in the face of a worker shortage.
But hey, who could have predicted that? Certainly there can’t be any maleficence here. Not from a government that would withhold non-hospital based treatments during a “pandemic”.
(It’s not incompetence. Opt-out.)
Democrats at every level of government (but especially at the White House) are so concerned with drama, back-stabbing and politics, that there is no time to do the job of running the country. They know it’s hard work to increase hospital capacity. It’s so much easier to blame the unvaxxed. There’s just so much social justice to virtue signal, how can we expect them to do any actual work!
I know. It is amazing that this even happened….https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/u-s-manufacturing-growth-november “U.S. manufacturing activity grew for the 18th consecutive month in November as companies continue to work around the clock to keep up with demand during the holiday season despite ongoing supply shortages and shipping delays.”
One benefit of being preoccupied with social justice is that they’re keeping their hands off of the rest economy. They certainly want to regulate and destroy business, but the Team B and Team K drama keeps getting them sidetracked!
Well, when you flush $1.9 trillion down the hole via the “American Rescue Plan” you’d think something would be able to benefit besides the coffers of those in the medical industrial complex. Then again, manufacturing “growth” surely can be manufactured. https://www.ismworld.org/supply-management-news-and-reports/reports/ism-report-on-business/pmi/december/ Try and wrap your mind around this . . . “The December Manufacturing PMI® registered 58.7 percent, a decrease of 2.4 percentage points from the November reading of 61.1 percent. This figure indicates expansion in the overall economy for the 19th month in a row after a contraction in April 2020.” Tadda! 19 consecutive months of growth! Wait. . .what??… Read more »
Gee, playing with beds or beds available.
What’s up with the 500 bed drop in Nov 2020?
IDPH counting changed: No staff, no beds, they said. Here is a Center Square article: https://www.thecentersquare.com/illinois/illinois-removes-thousands-of-available-hospital-beds-from-state-covid-19-database/article_f6990100-2b83-11eb-b417-d33ca560f4e6.html
Change the denominator, and you change the narrative.
Possibly it frees up federal dollars to fund useless programs to prevent looting and gun violence. Those dollars actually go to individuals to buy their votes.