Billings Clinic

For one Montana family, lead contamination in their home brought on what one parent describes as the “biggest trial we’ve ever been through.”

Nick Ehli reported for Kaiser Health News that Billings Clinic has hired two dozen nurses from other countries to fill the staffing void. MTPR's Freddy Monares spoke with Ehli about his reporting.

Billings Clinic is just one of the scores of hospitals across the U.S. looking abroad to ease a shortage of nurses worsened by the pandemic. The national demand is so great that it’s created a backlog of health care professionals awaiting clearance to work in the U.S.

COVID cases over the past week have more than doubled and the number of new cases added each day is growing. Hospitalizations in recent weeks have dropped coming off the state’s recent wave fueled by the Delta variant.

Hospitals self-report how much they give in community benefits, and their reporting processes are opaque. Even so, KHN’s analysis found that some of Montana’s wealthiest hospitals were spending well below the state and national averages.

St. Vincent Healthcare, RiverStone Health and Billings Clinic said in a joint statement that “Bottom line ... we are requiring our healthcare workers to become vaccinated against COVID-19."

COVID-19 hospitalizations in Montana hit an all-time high Wednesday, with 510 people needing hospital care due to the coronavirus. Public health and medical experts say the delta variant has made people sicker, and more COVID patients have landed in intensive care units.

As COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations decline across the country, the pandemic in Montana has continued to get worse. The average number of hospitalizations grew by nearly 40% over the past month. Health care workers are trying to keep up, and some are pushing the state to do more to help.

Gov. Greg Gianforte is sending 70 National Guard troops to hospitals around the state to help health care workers overloaded by COVID patients.

Billings Clinic in Montana is past the tipping point as it looks for places to add intensive care unit beds and is on the cusp of rationing care to deal with the surge of sick covid patients in a state with significant anti-vaccination sentiment.