Green Bay Reporter

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recently sent a medical squad to support Green Bay’s Bellin Hospital.

Rep. Kristina Shelton (D-Green Bay) took to Twitter to say that she has seen the toll that overworked medical professionals at the hospital are undergoing first hand.

“I live two blocks from Bellin Hospital. Every day, I drive past exhausted, overburdened health care professionals entering and leaving work. I’m hopeful the support mission will provide the life-saving services patients need. I’m frustrated because it didn’t have to be this way,” Shelton wrote.

According to Spectrum, FEMA sent a medical team consisting of 20 people from the U.S. Navy to provide support to the hospital because of staff shortages.

“FEMA has been dispatching similar teams of nurses, doctors and other health care professionals to overwhelmed hospitals in other states across the country,” Spectrum reported.

Roughly every intensive care bed (96%) is being utilized, along with 98% of intermediate care beds, according to Spectrum.

President and CEO of Bellin Health Chris Woleske was thankful for the aid and called on the community to help combat the virus by wearing masks and getting vaccinated, according to Spectrum.  

On Dec. 21 there were 1,660 citizens in the state hospitalized with COVID-19, with 424 of them in intensive care, according to Spectrum.

“The FEMA team will be essential to supporting our health care system in northeastern Wisconsin,” Wisconsin Department of Health Services Secretary Karen Timberlake said.

According to the state health department, approximately 58% of all state residents are fully vaccinated.

According to Covid Act Now, roughly three-quarters of the entire country’s population has received at least one dose of a vaccine with two-thirds of Brown County residents receiving at least one dose of a vaccine.