Guard troops transform UVM basketball gym for hospital patient overflow

Inside Patrick Gymnasium, patient beds are set up on the basketball court and a bank of computer stations is ready for medical staff to use. Photo by Ryan Mercer/UVMMC Communications.

As state public health officials monitor the growing caseload of COVID-19 patients across Vermont, the University of Vermont’s Patrick Gymnasium has been transformed into a 50-bed hospital site to expand efforts at the state’s largest hospital to address the virus outbreak. The University of Vermont Medical Center in conjunction with the Vermont National Guard assembled the surge site, which is now considered an extension of the main hospital, explained hospital spokeswoman Annie Mackin.

The main basketball court that would have been filled with crowds for high school and college hoops finals this spring is now outfitted with beds and equipment ready to be put into use should the main hospital need the extra capacity.

Mackin said that the surge site will follow the same policies and procedures as the inpatient wings at the medical center. It includes space for a dedicated pharmacy and a negative pressure area – an enclosed, walled-off space along the perimeter of the gym that contains air from circulating into the larger building space. That area could accommodate COVID-19 patients who need hospital care but aren’t severely ill, Mackin said. The site is equipped with mobile nursing stations and computers to access medical records, she noted.

Other facilities within the athletic complex have also been re-dedicated to the medical effort. Tennis courts located just down a hallway from the basketball gym are now being used to store and stage supplies. Team locker rooms in the lower level are now designated areas for hospital staff to change, eat and rest.

National Guard members working with medical center staff and officials completed the set-up in about three weeks, according to Mackin. Should the demand be higher than expected, the surge site can be expanded from 50 to 100 beds, she added.

As of Monday, April 13, Mackin said there were 20 confirmed positive COVID-19 patients at the medical center and another nine inpatients whose cases were under investigation but had not received a positive test result yet. Patrick Gym had not yet been used for patients, she said. The point at which they decide to use the surge site would be after all of the available beds that are dedicated to COVID-19 patients at the hospital fill up. But that number is a moving target, Mackin said.

“The hospital is expanding the number of beds within the medical center that they are dedicating to COVID-19 patients as the number of cases increase,” Mackin said. “We hope we don’t have to use this space – we are hoping we set it all up for nothing.”