Head Of Holmdel's Bayshore Medical Center Gives Positive Update

HOLMDEL, NJ — Frank Citara, the chief hospital executive for Bayshore Medical Center, talked to Patch for a quick interview outside the hospital Tuesday night, and the conditions he described inside the Holmdel community hospital are not as dire as many would suspect.

The hospital is not booked to capacity, and not every bed has been taken, Citara reported.

"We're not seeing the surge that North Jersey hospitals have been seeing in terms of COVID-19," said Citara. "In fact, Bayshore has been taking patients from other hospitals, like Palisades Medical Center (located in Hudson County) and JFK Medical Center (in Edison) to help them."

All three of those hospitals are part of the Hackensack Meridian Health network.

While conditions are indeed serious inside the hospital, Citara said the facility has not been overrun with COVID-19 patients. Hospitals being overrun was one of the greatest fears of government officials and public health experts in the pandemic, and that's why field hospitals were set up across New Jersey. Today, those field hospitals sit largely empty.

The positive news is presumably thanks to the isolation and social distancing New Jersey residents have done to "flatten the curve."

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As Patch reported, Gov. Phil Murphy said Tuesday there are consistent signs that New Jersey is flattening its upward curve of cases. For example, nearly all New Jersey counties are doubling their cases every seven days or more. Nearly two weeks ago, many counties were doubling in coronavirus cases every day.

Bayshore currently has other patients hospitalized there who are not being treated for COVID-19, and has open beds available for new patients, said Citara.

"It's still serious," Citara cautioned. "About 75 percent of our patients are here for COVID-19. We have 135 patients currently and 110 of them are COVID-19."

But he said Bayshore has also had a number of coronavirus patients be discharged.

"We've had patients who have successfully been extubated (taken off a ventilator) and gone home," said Citara.

Exact numbers for how many Bayshore COVID-19 patients have been treated and released were not immediately available.

Local police, firefighters and EMTs did a clap out for Bayshore medical staff as they walked into work Tuesday evening: