BATON ROUGE - Our Lady of the Lake hospital says it's asking the federal government for help as Louisiana sees an influx of new coronavirus patients.

The health system confirmed Friday that it's made a request for federal support to open additional ICU beds to handle the increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations. OLOL says it's specifically asking for 20 nurses, 10 respiratory therapists and 10 certified nurse assistants.

The hospital system says those additions would allow it to open up another 10 to 15 beds for patients. 

Earlier this week, OLOL announced it was putting a hold on non-emergency surgeries at its Baton Rouge location to make sure it can keeping up with the mounting coronavirus hospitalizations.