UnityPoint Health - Des Moines Needs Your Help

As COVID-19 hospitalizations hit record numbers locally and across the state, UnityPoint Health – Des Moines needs your help. 

Beds across our campuses – Iowa Methodist Medical Center, Iowa Lutheran Hospital and Methodist West Hospital – are nearly full, as we’re caring for the most inpatient COVID-19 patients since the start of the pandemic. 

As a result, we are postponing some patient procedures requiring overnight admissions to preserve beds and ensure we have adequate resources to care for all patients. When we say adequate resources, we don’t just mean beds and PPE. As community spread continues, it impacts our frontline health care workers. If they are sick or require quarantine, the result is less staff to care for our patients. 

We ask you to please protect our community and health care family by doing your part to slow the community spread of COVID-19:

• Wear your mask. 
• Social distance. 
• Stay at home when you are sick. 
• Get your flu shot. 

This is an urgent situation and the whole community can help. The consequences could be dire if we get to the point of not having enough beds or staff. This is serious; we need everyone to do their part and to do it now.

Please know that we are still accepting patients at this time. Emergencies don’t wait. If you have a medical emergency, we’re here, safe and ready for you. Call 911 or get to an Emergency Department immediately. 

For non-urgent medical needs, our walk-in clinics and primary care clinics are safe and open. We urge you to call ahead prior to visiting any of our primary care clinics, and require you wear a mask on all UnityPoint Health campuses, as this helps keep both you and our team members safe. 

We also recommend you use our Reserve a Spot feature for walk-in clinics like UnityPoint Clinic Urgent Care or UnityPoint Clinic – Express to avoid making it difficult to maintain social distancing measures while in our waiting rooms.