There are multiple problems related to delivering oxygen to patients, but overall the problem is not the absolute lack of oxygen, according to Dr. Christina Ghaly, director of health services in Los Angeles County.
In contrast, in some hospitals in the area, the aging infrastructure that pumps oxygen to patients ’rooms cannot keep up with the high number of patients who need oxygen.
“They are not able to maintain the pressure in the pipe to keep the oxygen supply at that high pressure level that has to be supplied through high flow oxygen supply vehicles,” Ghaly said. “Because of this high flow through the pipes, sometimes it’s freezing in the pipes, and obviously if it freezes, you can’t have a good flow of oxygen.”
Oxygen problems occur when Los Angeles County sees an almost overwhelming increase in Covid-19 patients bringing almost all hospitals to their capacity. There are currently nearly 7,000 hospitalized patients, with approximately 20% of those in intensive care units.
There is also a shortage of oxygen containers
To solve the problem of oxygen supply, some hospitals move Covid-19 patients to ground floors of the medical center, which facilitates the pumping of oxygen through the pipes without it freezing.
Another challenge, Ghaly said, is that several supply companies have a shortage of actual oxygen containers that patients can take home once they are discharged from the hospital. Without the containers, patients who might otherwise return home (and free the bed and time for health workers) must remain in the hospital.
For example, at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital. of Los Angeles, patients are being treated in tents outside the hospital, in a conference room and in the chapel. The gorges are taken to the gift shop. Elaine Batchlor, general manager of the hospital, said Monday, Dr. Elaine Batchlor.
“If we continue to see an increase in the number of patients with Covid, we may be forced to do something that, as health professionals, we are really just bored of having to think about,” he said.
At Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California, nurses who typically care for one or two patients now care for three or four, infectious disease specialist Dr. Kimberly Shriner told CNN on Sunday.
“We have a limited number of fans, we have a limited number of ICU beds,” said Shriner, who added that a team that includes a bioethicist, a community member, a doctor, a nurse and an administrative leader will decide how to split these resources if this is the case.
These issues can be combined for some difficult decisions in the future, said Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a medical analyst at CNN.
“If you don’t have breathing apparatus, you don’t have nurses to care for patients, you don’t have ICU beds, we will have to have these terrible discussions with families, so people need to stay home and when they leave, they need to wear a mask.” , said Reiner.
CNN’s Eric Levenson contributed to this report.