Name: Staffing levels top hospital concerns among COVID-19 pandemic
Uploaded: 2020-04-03T17:52:57-0400
Duration: 141927
Description: WRAL partnered with reporters from five other newsrooms this week to ask every North Carolina hospital network about bed capacity and staffing.

Have you noticed an unusual smell or flavor in your tap water over the past few days?

What's wrong with Raleigh tap water? Algae bloom at Falls Lake behind the smell, color

'Earthy and musty:' Here's why your tap water may taste strange this weekend in Raleigh

Homeowners insurance doesn't cover floods, so purchasing separate flood insurance is crucial in North Carolina, especially in high-risk areas.

Homeowners insurance doesn't cover floods: How to protect your home in North Carolina

Princeville residents weigh options after Hurricane Matthew

WRAL partnered with reporters from five other newsrooms this week to ask every North Carolina hospital network about bed capacity and staffing. 

OUT, BUT THE NUMBERS HERE IN NORTH CAROLINA LIKE IN EVERY OTHER STATE, NOT LOOKING GREAT AT THIS PARTICULAR MOMENT.>>> IN TODAY'S STATE NEWS CONFERENCE, OFFICIALS EMPHASIZED HOW THIS CRISIS IS LIKELY TO GET MUCH WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER. WRAL IS PART OF THE TEAM FROM JOURNALISTS AROUND THE STATE RESEARCHING HOSPITAL BED CAPACITIES TO SEE HOW WELL PREPARED NORTH CAROLINA IS. TYLER DUKES SHOWS US THE DATA THEY HAVE COLLECTED SO FAR.>> Reporter: THEY ARE NOT TALKING TO 59 HOSPITALIZATIONS FROM COVID-19. THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT WE SHOULD HAVE ENOUGH BEDS TO TREAT PATIENTS WHEN THAT NUMBER RISES DRAMATICALLY IN THE COMING WEEKS. WHAT IS WORRYING HOSPITALS NOW IS WHETHER THEY HAVE ENOUGH DOCTORS AND NURSES TO STAFF THOSE BEDS. STATE HEALTH OFFICIALS STARTED TRACKING HOSPITAL BED CAPACITY. BY THAT NUMBER, MORE THAN 21,000 REPRESENTS BEDS LICENSED IN THE STATE. >> THAT IS TAKING US A FEW WEEKS TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET THE RIGHT DATE AND THE MOST USEFUL DATA. >> RIGHT NOW IN THE STATE OF SERVING HOSPITALS TO GET A TALLY OF VENTILATOR INVENTORY AND BED CAPACITY. BUT THERE'S BEEN NO EFFORT YET TO TRACK STAFFING AND THAT FACTOR MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE IN HOW MANY PATIENTS THE HOSPITAL CAN HANDLE. WRAL PARTNERED WITH REPORTERS FROM FIVE OTHER NEWSROOMS THIS WEEK TO ASK EVERY NORTH CAROLINA HOSPITAL AND NETWORK ABOUT  BED CAPACITY AND STAFFING. MOST HOSPITALS RESPONDED. THEY DID REVEAL MAJOR DIFFERENCES IN THE BEDS THEY CAN STAFF TODAY AND THOSE THAT THEY CAN STAFF WITH FLEX CAPACITY. IT HAS FOR TRIAD HELP HOSPITALS WITH 600 STAFF TO BEDS, BUT THAT NUMBER CAN ACTUALLY INCREASE TO 100 BEDS IF NEEDED. FOR THE STATE HEALTHCARE ASSOCIATION, FINDING TRAINED WORKERS HAVE BECOME THE CHIEF CONCERN. >> WE ARE ALREADY EXHAUSTING THE STAFF WE HAVE. WE GOT TO MAKE SURE WE TAKE CARE OF THEM AND GET HIS MONEY IN THE QUEUE AS WE CAN TO COME IN AND TAKE A SHIFT. >> THERE ARE EFFORTS TO HELP TACKLE THIS PROBLEM. MEDICAL BOARDS ARE REMOVING LICENSING HURDLES AND THEY ARE MOVING TO DIRECT PERSONNEL WHERE THEY ARE NEEDED MOST. THE STATE IS EVEN GATHERING VOLUNTEERS. THAT SHOULD BE HUNDREDS OF ADDITIONAL HEALTHCARE WORKERS THAT SHOULD BE ON THE GROUND HELPING PATIENTS IN THE COMING WEEKS. >> YOU CAN FIND THE SUPPORT ALONG WITH MORE DATA, MAPS AND

Tyler Dukes

Staffing levels top hospital concerns among COVID-19 pandemic

Duke Hospital staff

WRAL-TV News Broadcasts: Watch each newscast live or watch the most recent newscast on demand.

WRAL Late News 

Get the latest WRAL WeatherCenter Forecast whenever you need it, including the DUALDoppler5000 and the 7-Day Forecast.

I'm meteorologist, Amy Wilmoth in the WRL severe weather center tracking a cold front that will move through the state throughout the day. Today, we'll have some light rain with this perhaps moderate rain at times, but most of you won't get a ton of rain. It's just going to be some light passing showers at four o'clock this afternoon, we'll still have some rain showing up on the radar scattered showers possible. Uh, basically anywhere aside from our northern counties, our northern counties should be dry at that point by 5 p.m. or so. The rain is south of the triangle impacting our southern counties during the evening. Commute, still some showers around in our southern counties at 7 p.m. But beyond that, the rain will start to move out and it will be dry overnight tonight. And we're back to sunshine as we head into tomorrow. Look at how much rain we could get. It's less than 1/10 of an inch of rain. So we're not going to get much out of this system, but at least it's something, it's our only rain chance in the next seven days. So we'll have some light rain moving through thanks to the cold front, temperatures will likely get into the low eighties in our southern counties where we'll have sunshine a little bit longer. 74 for the high in Raleigh and Durham, 75 in Roxboro, 73 for the high temperature in South Hill, Virginia. So temperatures running pretty close to normal throughout the day today. Good news. If you're headed to the Bulls game this evening at 635 it looks like the rain will be out of here. We have a 20% chance for rain, but the best chance will be in the southern part of the viewing area, 70 degrees, the expected temperature at 6 p.m. 68 by seven and in the mid six by 8 p.m. So maybe take the jacket or the sweater with you as temperatures fall into the sixties starting around seven o'clock or so. So we have passing showers today. Generally light rain a little breezy at times with the high of 74 tonight, we'll have mostly clear skies. We'll get down to 51 beautiful weather. Thursday, partly cloudy to mostly sunny with a high of 72. Pretty much the same thing on Friday. Temperatures will be in the low seventies for highs. We're up to 76 Saturday and then low eighties by Sunday, mid to upper eighties for high temperatures in the forecast for Monday and Tuesday of next week.

WRAL WeatherCenter Forecast

A UNC Health physician and pilot were taken to the hospital Wednesday after a small plane crashed at Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU).


Sky 5 flies over plane crash at RDU

RDU Airport Authority gives an update on a plane crash that sent a physician and pilot to the hospital. The crash occurred Wednesday morning on a flight that took off from Wilmington.

Landguth first, I want to extend my thoughts to those affected by this morning's aircraft accident and thank our first responders for their quick action to respond. The airport authority and its mutual aid partners responded to an aircraft accident at RDU involving a general aviation aircraft. The accident occurred at approximately 10:10 a.m. in the grass next to runway five, right 23 left. The flight was arriving from Wilmington, North Carolina. The A the aircraft is owned by medical Air Inc and operated by UN C air operations. The aircraft had two people on board, one pilot and one passenger. Both were transported to area hospitals. The federal A Bush administration issued a ground stop that was lifted at approximately 1130 this morning. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have both been notified. The National Transportation Safety Board is en route and expected to arrive within the next hour at which time we will conduct an accident investigation. Rdu's runway five left 23 right reopened to departing and arriving aircraft around 11:30 a.m. this morning. Are you experiencing approximately 70 delays and several arriving flights were diverted to other airports? Until ground stock was lifted, travelers should contact their airline for the latest updates regarding the flight status. And of course questions about the identity and condition of the pilot and passenger should be directed to UN C health. And at this time I'll try to answer any questions. You may have, uh, the one, any other accidents in, in the past. I'm not familiar with any other accidents have occurred with that operation. I don't know, uh, that's the role of the National Transportation Safety Board. They'll actually come in and do the investigation. Uh, and at some point in the future, they write up a report and determine what the cause of the accident was. You know, that there was no notification to the airport authority or to the FAA uh about any type of emergency on board. Do we have a guy? We don't, all we know that we've got them out of the airplane and we've got them transported to local hospitals. We know situations like this and delays have a ripple effect on, you know, flights. Do you have any idea what type of impact we'll see here in our view and for not sure, but what we're going to encourage everybody to do is reach out to your airlines. We'll be able to give you real time information about the impact of your particular flight. Ok. I believe some of them went to Greensboro and I think a couple went to Charlotte as well. What, what to be impacted due to the NTSD. Say that one more time at this point in time, what we call the west side of our airport is now open the investigation they'll conduct will all be on the east side. So at this point, we are anticipating normal operations returning to normal operations from this point forward. I don't think that anything that they're doing regarding the investigation or where they would have to investigate would have any impact to the west side of the airport. No, the aircraft is still on the airfield itself. It's on the east side of the field. So terminal one that runways the east side of the field, that's where the debris field actually sits, the west side of the field is open and operational and safe to operate. Not that I'm aware of in operations for you throughout this event today. What was your main concern concerning the passengers that were in the internals? Right. I think our primary focus when, when that accident occurred were the two people sitting in that aircraft? Our primary mission is to make sure we can get to them and try to rescue them and try to make sure that we can get them in a safe condition as fast as we possibly can. Uh secondarily is trying to figure out then how we recover and get our operations back up and running. Mhm. How does that affect? What goes on term? Yeah, so great. Question. So the team has figured out a way to get all the aircraft they're gonna operate at terminal one. Your Southwest develops. Uh We've got a crossover taxi way that we can actually get them through our general aviation aircraft. We've got a crossover taxiway, we can get them to. But the rest of the uh accident scene is actually kind of isolated and closed and locked off. Yeah, you're terminal one at this point in time. Once they can get back on their schedule, it's going to be a normal operations. All right. Thank you guys. All right. Thank you. Grab your phone, right.

Update on RDU plane crash that sent 2 to hospital

A small plane crashed at Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU) Wednesday morning.



WRAL News coverage: Plane crashes at RDU, pilot and physician injured

A small plane crash with injuries was reported Wednesday at Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

Emergency crews respond to plane crash at RDU

Nightly N.C. Education Lottery drawings during the 11 p.m. News.

Good evening. I'm Tis the cash with tonight's lottery drawings for Tuesday, April 23rd, 2024. Good luck at the Carolina pick 38 is our first winning number tonight, followed by six, third pick 35 and the pick three. Fireball number is eight. Joining me for tonight's drawing is our auditor from mcconnell and Jones L LP. Now it's time for the Carolina pick for checking tickets. Good luck. Six is first winning number tonight followed by zero, third pick 4, 1/4 winning number another zero. And our pick for fireball number is three. Let's turn now to the Carolina cash five. If no one matches all five numbers to win the jackpot tonight, tomorrow's top prize is an estimated $528,000. Good luck first winning cash five number 28 cash 5, 33. 3rd winning number 13. Our fourth cash five tonight, 25 and good luck. Our final winning number is 30. The North Carolina Education lottery has contributed over $10 billion to education. Thanks for your support and get the winning numbers every night right here on your exclusive station for the North Carolina Education lottery. Thanks for playing.

Evening Pick 3 Pick 4 and Cash 5

Tuesday and Friday Mega Millions Drawing.

>> ACROSS AMERICA WITH MEGA JACKPOTS, IT'S MEGA MILLIONS HALEM ERIC, I'M JOHN CROW TO SEIZE APRIL 23RD AND TONIGHT'S MEGA MILLIONS JACKPOT IS AN ESTIMATED ANNUITIZED 202 MILLION DOLLARS. >> TO WIN THAT JACKPOT, YOU MUST MATCH THESE 5 WHITE. PLUS THAT GOLD MEGA BALL. NOW AS YOU MAKE IT MAKE YOU A MILLIONAIRE TONIGHT. FIRST WINNING NUMBER TONIGHT IS A 43 FOLLOWED. MY 39. UP NEXT, WE HAVE 11 IN X NUMBER IS 17 IN YOUR FINAL WHITE BALL NUMBER FOR THIS TUESDAY EVENING IS 33 NOW FOR THE MEGA BALL NUMBER. THAT IS 14 AGAIN. TONIGHT'S WINNING NUMBERS ARE 43. 39, 11,

Staffing levels top hospital concerns among COVID-19 pandemic

More On This