An Iowa family is blaming the unvaccinated for keeping their patriarch who had sepsis from getting a hospital bed for two weeks before he later died from complications after surgery.

Dale Weeks, 78, was a retired school superintendent diagnosed with the infection in November and was being treated at a small, rural hospital. He was vaccinated and boosted, according to his son Anthony.

His family wanted him transferred to a larger hospital that could provide him with better treatment options, but none of the bigger facilities had open beds due to a recent rash of COVID cases with the emergence of the Omicron variant.

Weeks’ children blame the unvaccinated for their father’s inability to be moved to a different facility. 

‘It was terribly frustrating being told, “There’s not a bed yet,“’ Jenifer Owenson, one of his four children, said Tuesday. 

‘All of us were talking multiple times a day, “Why can’t we get him a bed?“ There was this logjam to get him in anywhere.’ 

Dale Weeks (pictured center), 78, had to wait two weeks for a hospital bed due to unvaccinated COVID patients taking up ICU space

Weeks eventually got into surgery for sepsis but succumbed to complications from surgery two weeks later

Weeks’ family believes that Dale could still be alive had he not had to wait for a bed at a larger hospital that could treat him better than the rural facility he’d been staying at

Weeks finally got into surgery two weeks after being admitted to a new facility, but his condition had worsened and he died on November 28 due to complications from surgery.   

Anthony called his father a victim of the pandemic who would’ve survived had he been able to get to a larger hospital. 

‘The frustrating thing was not that we wanted him to get care that others weren’t getting, but that he didn’t get care when he needed it. And when he did get it, it was too late,’ Anthony said. 

‘The question comes up of: ‘Who was in those beds?’ If it’s people who are unvaccinated with Covid, then that’s the part where it really hurts.’

Jennifer sees the unvaccinated as selfish, making it harder to accept what happened to their father.   

‘The thing that bothers me the most is people’s selfish decision not to get vaccinated and the failure to see how this affects a greater group of people,’ Owenson said. ‘That’s the part that’s really difficult to swallow.’

The hospital system responsible for Weeks admitted that a majority of their patients were unvaccinated

Iowa, like much of the rest of the country, is seeing a spike in COVID cases due to Omicron

Though they’ve ticked down slightly, hospitalization of COVID patients has spiked in Iowa in recent weeks

A spokesperson for MercyOne, the hospital system tasked with Weeks’ care, admitted that unvaccinated individuals were causing bed shortages. 

‘In addition to an increased number of COVID-19 cases and spread of the delta and omicron variants, hospitals across the country are dealing with traumas and experiencing multiple types of illness,’ Marcy Peterson said in a statement. 

‘This demand is coupled with a reduced number of staff to care for patients. These challenges can strain available resources and contribute to delays in care or other complications for patients.’ 

She said that ‘a large percentage’ of their patients were not vaccinated. 

More than 71,000 people are currently in the hospital suffering from COVID-19 in America, occupying around 16,344 ICU beds. According to COVID Act Now, at least 81 percent of Iowa’s ICU beds have been taken up. 

In Iowa, more than 1,500 people are testing positive for the virus each day and currently 706 people are hospitalized, which is down slightly.  

COVID-19 cases are up across much of the country in recent weeks due to the new variant

Iowa is currently below the national average in terms of residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19

The state’s department of health said that 82 percent of hospitalized COVID patients are unvaccinated and over 85 percent of those in the ICU haven’t gotten the jab.    

The state is below the national rate of 62 percent fully vaccinated with just 60 percent of residents falling in that category.    

Julia Simanski, Weeks’ daughter, said their father struggled with how others could avoid taking the shot.  

‘He said, “I don’t understand that, what is the reason for not getting vaccinated?“’ Simanski said. ‘I told him how these people didn’t know what was in the vaccine. He said, “Well, we didn’t know what was in polio, either, but we got the shot.“’  

Weeks’ surviving family is hoping people will live up to their father’s example in his memory.        

‘The irony of it all is that someone who was committed to service and helping people his whole life ended up dying from people not being neighborly or helpful,’ Simanski said.