SEATTLE — Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center is nearly 150 patients over capacity, and hospital officials announced Thursday they would begin diverting most patients who do not have acute or life-threatening issues. Describing the situation as “unprecedented” during a news conference, Harborview CEO Sommer Kleweno Walley said Harborview was treating 560 inpatients, a figure considerably north of its licensed capacity of 413 patients.

That number includes more than 100 patients who no longer require hospitalization and are awaiting placement in a long-term or post-acute care facilities, an issue that has presented a challenge for hospitals across the region during the course of the pandemic. Harborview officials said limiting temporarily limiting the type of patients they intake to help ensure capacity for people with the most urgent needs.

“Given the unique position Harborview has in the community, as the Level I trauma center, as the disaster center here for all critical illness, we’ve had to make a very difficult decision today,” Walley said Thursday. “In order to ensure that we maintain our critical capacity for any type of trauma that is needed in our region, and for any type of critical illness, we have moved to going on what we call ‘basic life support divert,’ which means patients that are not in need of more urgent care will be needed to be taken care of and brought by ambulances to other hospitals surrounding Harborview in the area.”

That means people with injuries or conditions that are less severe, like abdominal pain or breathing issues, will be rerouted to nearby hospital partners, including Swedish and Virginia Mason. While hospitals across the region are struggling with capacity issues of their own, Harborview officials said its partners have some surge capacity to help lessen the load.

In recent weeks, Harborview officials said ambulances arriving with patients sometimes waited for hours to get their patients inside.

“The continuum starts when people dial 911 or come to emergency departments,” said Dr. Steve Mitchell, Harborview’s acting medical director. “What has been happening is that when ambulances arrive at emergency departments, they’re unable to offload their patients to beds inside the emergency department and they’re having to wait for longer and longer periods of time, sometimes even hours, before they are able to offload their patients, which is then impacting their ability to serve the community for their emergencies when they occur.”

Harborview said the “basic life support divert” would remain in place until capacity eases, while the broader UW Medicine system works to expand its footprint and ability to treat patients.