- Dr. Paul Palecek is the ER medical director at Grand Itasca hospital in Grand Rapids, Minn.
Courtesy of Cassi Chrzanowski
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By Catharine Richert
Earlier this month, Paul Ulstrom's dad had his second stroke in a year. He was immediately taken to the emergency room in Chaska, Minn.
“We sat there for eight hours waiting for a room, which is really frustrating,” said Ulstrom.
Last year, when Ulstrom's dad had his first stroke during the most severe wave of COVID-19 to date, his care team found a bed faster.
This time, the wait was so long, Ulstrom says his dad was scared.
"There was a look in his face, and it breaks my heart because I could tell he was really worried,” Ulstrom said.
Finally, the Chaska hospital found a bed in St. Paul and Ulstrom's dad is stable now.
But what happened to Ulstrom and his father is a story playing out over and over again in emergency rooms around the state, and especially in smaller hospitals where there are few ICU beds to begin with.
COVID hospitalizations have taken a sharp turn upward, a trend that health officials say could have been avoided if more people had been vaccinated. Staff shortages are contributing to a shortage of available hospital beds, too. [Continue reading] | | |
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- Remembering Dave Frishberg, songwriter of "I'm Just a Bill." Songwriter Dave Frishberg reluctantly said the song from the TV show “Schoolhouse Rock" was his most famous. Frishberg died Wednesday in Portland, Ore., where he’d been living since the 1980s. He was 88.
- Republican AG candidate faces suspended law license. Dennis Smith, who is running for Minnesota attorney general, has signed an agreement that could lead to a 30-day law license suspension and years of probation after that.
- Holiday nostalgia: Dayton's project hearkens back to window shopping. The newly renovated Dayton’s building in downtown Minneapolis reopened to the public Thursday. While the department store is long gone, the project’s developers revived an old Dayton’s tradition, the holiday display windows.
- WNBA changes its playoff format to more traditional bracket. The league announced Thursday that the postseason will consist of three rounds — best-of-three games for the first round and best-of-five games for subsequent ones — beginning this summer. The top eight teams overall will make the playoffs.
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