PHOENIX — State health officials have confirmed that they have filed a request for federal support for staff in seven Arizona hospitals.
The requests made on December 4 asks for 133 staff members for seven hospitals in Yuma, Cochise, and Mohave counties.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Health Services said the requests from hospitals first goes through the local county health, then to ADHS.
“ADHS has recruited and paid for hundreds of nurses to help hospitals with staffing constraints. This effort continues,” a statement read.
The request to FEMA was made and now ADHS will wait to see if and when resources can be deployed.
In total, ADHS has three requests into FEMA for assistance:
- Monoclonal Antibody Treatment teams for Pima County to deliver monoclonal antibody therapy at Banner Health and Carondelet St. Joseph’s Hospital.
- Monoclonal Antibody Treatment teams for Maricopa County to deliver monoclonal antibody therapy at Banner Health Center Plus, Banner Estrella Medical Center, Valleywise Health Medical Center, Dignity Health Arizona General Hospital and Abrazo Central Campus.
- Medical staffing to provide emergency support in areas of emergency department decompression and medical surge nursing augmentation at Yuma Regional Medical Center and Canyon Vista Medical Center. Deployment to other locations and additional resources are still under consideration.
A spokesperson for FEMA said that resources are being mobilized and tentative dates are being set to deploy teams.
Last week, Arizona saw the lowest number of ICU beds that were available with less than 80 beds reported statewide.