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March 31, 2020

DCU Center to be one of three Massachusetts Emergency Medical Centers for coronavirus patients

Photo | TMS Aerial Solutions The DCU Center in Worcester
By Grant Welker

Worcester's DCU Center will be turned into a 250-medical facility to treat less severe coronavirus cases as one of three planned such centers statewide, officials announced Tuesday.

Gov. Charlie Baker said the DCU Center is one of three field medical stations for which the state has requested approval from the federal government through the Massachusetts Emergency Medical Center.

The center will take about three days to set up, with a planned first so-called pod of 40 beds to be operational first, UMass Memorial Health Care President and CEO Eric Dickson said at a press conference at Worcester City Hall.

"This is an unprecedented medical challenge for us," Dickson said. "Unfortunately, when you look at projections, there isn't enough capacity for the city."

Beds will be set up on the first-floor convention center space inside the DCU Center, with partitions between beds but a fairly open layout to allow medical personnel to easily check on patients. 

Three tractor trailers with the supplies necessary to set up the DCU Center beds will arrive in Worcester on Wednesday, and UMass Medical Center will oversee the day-to-day operations of the field hospital. The center is expected to be staffed by UMass Medical School students whose graduation date was moved up from a planned May commencement in order to help the industry meet care demand.

Photo | Grant Welker
Worcester City Manager Edward Augustus. Behind him are Dr. Michael Hirsh, the medical director of the Worcester Division of Public Health; Carolyn Jackson, the CEO of Saint Vincent Hospital; Eric Dickson, the president and CEO of UMass Memorial Health Care; and Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty.

Worcester City Manager Edward Augustus previously announced March 23 the DCU Center will be used as extra medical care space.

The city, which owns the arena and convention center, came to the decision to use the building after working with heads of the two Worcester acute-care hospitals, Saint Vincent Hospital and UMass Memorial.

Saint Vincent and UMass Memorial have a combined roughly 1,000 patient beds, according to the Massachusetts Center for Health Information and Analysis. But relatively few of those beds are typically available at any given time to new patients, and few of them are in intensive care units for the most severe cases.

UMass Memorial has set up seven dedicated intensive care units on its Memorial and University campuses in Worcester, and Saint Vincent has doubled its ICU space.

Dickson and Carolyn Jackson, the CEO of Saint Vincent, said the hospitals have enough capacity today but likely won't for long. The DCU Center will be used for less severe cases.

"We can't do this when we're at the surge," Dickson said of planning for additional space before the anticipated bump in patient counts in the coming weeks. "We have to do this beforehand."

The DCU Center space will likely be needed about as soon as its fully complete in about a week in a half, Dickson said.

Across Greater Worcester, a total of 425 beds are considered available to use, according to an analysis by the Harvard Global Health Institute. But if even 20% of the area's population contracts the virus, according to the institute, more than 1,800 area beds will be needed at the height of the crisis. The need for intensive care beds will also far outstrip existing capacity.

State House News Service contributed to this report.

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