Rural hospital remains entrenched in Covid ‘war’ even amid vaccine rollout

Editor’s note: KHN wrote about St. James Parish Hospital in April, when it was experiencing its first surge of covid-19 patients. Ten months later, we checked in to see how the hospital and its staff were faring. This story also ran on The Guardian. It can be republished for free. The “heroes work here” sign in front of St. James Parish Hospital has been long gone, along with open intensive care unit beds in the state of Louisiana. Staffers at the rural hospital spent hours each day in January calling larger hospitals in search of the elusive beds for covid-19 patients. They leveraged personal...