Salem Hospital has begun diverting ambulances to other hospitals when its own facility is too full.

The hospital has been operating at greater than 100% capacity for more than a year, spokeswoman Lisa Wood said in a written statement.

Ambulances were diverted for the first time on Tuesday, for about four hours.

“There are limits to our capacity, and we are addressing the root causes of high capacity through a number of tools,” Wood said in the statement, sent in response to an interview request. “Our goal is to manage capacity for patient and staff safety.”

Salem Hospital is still averaging 40 to 50 COVID-19 positive patients per day, contributing to capacity problems, Wood said in the statement. While that's less than half the peaks of 110 in September 2021 and 120 in January 2022, it's still the equivalent of nearly two full nursing units.

Another 40 to 80 patients per day could be discharged from the hospital to skilled nursing and long-term care facilities, but there are no beds available in those facilities.

Wood did not respond to a question about the number of patients the hospital can currently care for at capacity.

The hospital just opened a new seven-story, 150-bed patient tower that brought it to 644 total beds. But capacity also depends on staffing and other factors.

The hospital last diverted ambulances in 2008, Wood wrote. She was unable to say why.

“We understand this is a significant change for our community, but this decision is consistent with our vision of 'no patient, employee or provider harm is acceptable to us.' To be clear, ambulance diversion means a temporary pause for patients who do not have life-threatening injuries and are arriving via ambulance,” she wrote.

Patients arriving via private transportation, and those with immediate, life-threatening conditions will not be sent elsewhere.

Wood was unable to say to which other hospitals patients might be taken.

Emergency medical service providers make that decision, as well as deciding which patients are candidates for diversion, she said.

The hospital does not have access to data about the number of patients diverted or where they are taken.

"However, our EMS partners are tracking this data in collaboration with the county," she said.

There is no way for the public to know when the emergency room is turning patients away.

Real-time hospital diversion information is included in Oregon's hospital capacity web system, which is available to health care and emergency workers but not to the public.

Tracy Loew is a reporter at the Statesman Journal. She can be reached at tloew@statesmanjournal.com, 503-399-6779 or on Twitter at@Tracy_Loew.