The University of Mississippi Medical Center is so overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients during the state’s worst wave of cases that it is constructing a field hospital in a parking garage. This is necessary to increase capacity, as UMMC is completely out of staffed intensive care unit beds. The medical center is just one of the many medical facilities across the state on the verge of collapse as the delta variant causes a level of need the state’s healthcare workers cannot meet.
Mississippi Today photojournalist Vickie King visited the facility to view how officials are prepping the area for an influx of COVID patients.
Photo Captions:
UMMC staffers arrive with beds to be used for the COVID-19 field hospital currently being set up in the basement of Parking Garage B, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021.
View of the outside of the COVID-19 field hospital in the basement of Parking Garage B at UMMC.
“We shouldn’t be here,” said State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, inside a COVID-19 Field Hospital currently being set up at UMMC as the state’s cases of the coronavirus surge.
Federal employees made up of doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and paramedics sent to staff the field hospital at UMMC set up equipment in the basement of Parking Garage B, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021 in Jackson. UMMC needed the help because of a lack of resources during a recent surge in coronavirus cases.
Beds to be used for the COVID-19 field hospital currently being set up in the basement of Parking Garage B.
UMMC Associate Vice Chancellor Dr. Alan Jones discusses the need for the COVID-19 Field Hospital.
Rick Hess, Jr. heads the federal resource team sent to staff the COVID-19 field hospital at UMMC in Jackson, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021. UMMC announced it is out of beds and the tent hospital located in the basement of Parking Garage B will serve coronavirus patients.
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