Since the announcement of Skiff Medical Center’s Monarch Wing upcoming reclassification from a hospice house to an inpatient unit, Skiff President and CEO Steve Long has been faced with many questions regarding the future of the hospital’s hospice program.

In an interview Tuesday, Long explained that recent months have seen peaks in the number of patients admitted to Skiff while the number of hospice patients utilizing the wing has dropped. The hospital has a 48-bed capacity, including the six designated solely for hospice patients on the Monarch Wing. According to Long, three weeks ago there was an evening the hospital saw a peak of over 40 patients requiring admittance, and hospital staff saw an issue.

“In fact, we were searching for a place where we would put the next patient that we would admit through the emergency room,” Long said. “On that particular night we had five empty rooms on the Monarch Wing. We were saying we need to admit more patients, and in fact, we want to because that is helpful for us. And in the future, we will be full like that again because that’s our goal.”