Local officials in Madison County are worried about staffing concerns for hospitals.

We know more than 300 Huntsville Hospital Healthcare System employees are out right now either because they have coronavirus or have been into close contact with someone who has it and have to quarantine.

"Today we have people waiting to get into hospital beds because we don't have quite enough staff to accept them up on the units," said Dr. Pam Hudson, Crestwood Medical Center CEO.

She said there is a significant shortage of health care workers to staff hospitals in our area.

"Over 180 county and 350 area employees that work at the hospitals are unable to work right now due to either their own illness or because of illness in their family or close contacts that have resulted in their quarantine," said Hudson.

She says because of this, frontline workers are stretched thin.

"Nurses and other staff members working in departments that they don't normally work in and it has caused most facilities to revise their routine care schedules in taking care of patients," she said.

Madison County Commission Chairman Dale Strong agrees.

"This virus is directly impacting those who provide the care to this community, nurses in our hospitals, physicians and first responders. We cannot afford to lose the caregivers and health care professionals who provide the care we need and especially for the critically ill with coronavirus," he said.

Hudson says if people in the community do not help stopping the spread of the virus, your healthcare could be impacted.

"You run into some issues with care that's not able to be what we have come to know and appreciate in our healthcare system," she said.

She says as a community we can help by wearing your mask, social distancing and sanitizing.

"We can't afford to have that many people out because our work is, saves lives and takes care of people and helps prevent more complications. So that absence of workers is really the issue and to fix that, we need to drive down the community transmission," said Hudson.