The University of Mississippi Medical Center is so overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients during the state’s worst wave of cases that it is constructing a field hospital in a parking garage. This is necessary to increase capacity, as UMMC is completely out of staffed intensive care unit beds. The medical center is just one of the many medical facilities across the state on the verge of collapse as the delta variant causes a level of need the state’s healthcare workers cannot meet.

Mississippi Today photojournalist Vickie King visited the facility to view how officials are prepping the area for an influx of COVID patients.

  • UMMC staffers arrive with beds to be used for the COVID-19 field hospital currently being set up in the basement of Parking Garage B, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
  • View of the outside of the Covid19 field hospital in the basement of Parking Garage B at UMMC, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021 in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
  • “We shouldn’t be here,” said State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, inside a COVID-19 Field Hospital currently being set up at UMMC as the state’s cases of the coronavirus surge. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
  • Federal employees made up of doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and paramedics sent to staff the field hospital at UMMC set up equipment in the basement of Parking Garage B, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021 in Jackson. UMMC needed the help because of a lack of resources during a recent surge in coronavirus cases. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
  • Beds to be used for the COVID-19 field hospital currently being set up in the basement of Parking Garage B, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
  • Federal employees made up of doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and paramedics sent to staff the field hospital at UMMC Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021 in Jackson. UMMC needed the help because of a lack of resources during a recent surge in coronavirus cases. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
  • UMMC Associate Vice Chancellor of Clinical Affairs Dr. Alan Jones discusses the need for the Covid19 Field Hospital, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021 in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
  • Some of the federal employees made up of doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and paramedics sent to staff the field hospital at UMMC Thursday, August 12, 2021 in Jackson. UMMC needed the help because of a lack of resources during a recent surge in coronavirus cases. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
  • Rick Hess, Jr. heads the federal resource team sent to staff the COVID-19 field hospital at UMMC in Jackson, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021. UMMC announced it is out of beds and the tent hospital located in the basement of Parking Garage B will serve coronavirus patients. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
  • Rick Hess, Jr. (right) head of the federal resource team sent to staff the COVID-19 field hospital at UMMC, talks to his team, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021. UMMC announced it is out of beds and the tent hospital located in the basement of Parking Garage B will serve coronavirus patients. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

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Vickie King has experience as a professional photographer spanning 35 years- from childhood purchasing her first camera by selling flower seeds to neighbors, as a stringer for Associated Press in Des Moines, Iowa, a freelancer shooting an album cover to your loved one’s wedding, and your kids and pets at a J.C. Penney portrait studio. She joins the Mississippi Today team as a photojournalist.

A native Mississippian and resident of Jackson, Vickie was born in Laurel.
You know her work from years as a staff photographer for the Clarion-Ledger. Her award-winning photography has appeared in such publications as the New York Times, Editor & Publisher Magazine, People Magazine, in national news broadcasts, and books depicting the devastation of Hurricane Katrina to the glory of Ole Miss football.

Most recently, she is the former photographer, Special Projects Officer IV, Staff Officer I, videographer, and online content producer for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. She is also a Pulitzer Prize nominee for Spot News.

Vickie is a graduate of Simpson College, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media Relations.