As of Monday, Dec. 14, Riverside County is using 100% of its hospital intensive care unit capacity, but a spokesman said, but that means the nationwide system is completely out of beds.
Riverside County Public Health Spokesman Jose Arbello Jr. said hospitals are implementing uprising programs that involve converting other beds into intensive care beds – although they are not licensed for that use – and eliminating select surgeries.
He did not know how many hospitals had already stopped selective surgeries, but did so a few weeks ago as case numbers and hospital admission figures began to climb upwards.
San Bernardino County has 0% remaining in its official position on Monday – which does not include intensive care beds available for infants and children, and is adjusted if a proportionate number of beds are used for COVID-19 patients – spokesman David Wert said. But 10.1% of the county’s total ICU beds are available, up from 11.1% the previous day.
The equipment was ready for a closed Sears in Riverside and overflow field hospitals prepared at the county fair grounds in Indo, but they have not yet been implemented, Arballo said.
“We have no plans to do that now,” Arpallo said. “We have the equipment ready to go if we need it, but we don’t have the staff.”
The 100% capacity count represents the number of ICU patients nationwide compared to the number of licensed beds, said Shane Richard, spokeswoman for the Department of Emergency Management.
Some hospitals use neonatal intensive care units or pediatric intensive care beds that need to be modified for adult use and do not measure ICU capacity, he said.
“We don’t have people in the halls, but we recreate the beds for NICU and PICU – baby beds,” Richard said.
County hospitals rarely reach 100% of the listed capacity, Richard said. In July, they were at full capacity during epidemics.
He and Arbello did not immediately have the number of ICU beds in the county.
Some hospitals may have more capacity, while others have fewer beds, Arbello said.
“When the county as a whole is 0%, there will be capacity for individual hospitals,” he said. “You may have one or two hospitals that are in their 90s or over 90s (percentage of ICU beds in use).”
The county received 4.3% of its ICU beds as of Friday, December 11th.
There were 184 confirmed cases of confirmed COVID-19 in ICU beds in Riverside County and seven suspected patients according to state statistics from Sunday, the most recent day the data was available. Statistics show 19 of the 21 facilities in Riverside County.
San Bernardino has registered 264 patients in intensive care with confirmed COVID-19 and five patients with suspected cases as of Sunday.