LOS ANGELES (AP) – California hospitals are struggling to find beds to house patients, fearing the explosion rate of coronavirus infection will deplete resources and health workers.
As of Friday, nearly 17,000 people were hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 infections (more than double the previous peak reached in July) and a state model that uses current data to predict future trends shows that the figure could reach to 75,000 unfathomable in mid-January.
More than 3,500 confirmed or suspected patients with COVID-19 were in intensive care units.
Some areas of California “are right on this peak of overcoming,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, during an event hosted by the California State University system.
The Corona Regional Medical Center, southeast of Los Angeles, has converted a former emergency room to help manage nearly twice the usual number of patients with ICUs. Space in two disaster tents is used to pick up patients with emergencies because the emergency room is full of patients who need to be hospitalized.
Ambulances can sit for two hours unless they are carrying patients with serious or fatal emergencies.
“There’s no place in the inn, so to speak,” said hospital executive director Mark Uffer. “Literally, every corner of the hospital is used.”
It’s a scene that unfolds all over California. According to state data Friday, all of Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley, north of twelve counties, had exhausted the capacity of the regular intensive care unit and some hospitals have begun using the “overload” space.
In the strong county of Fresno, in central California, a new 50-bed alternative care site near the community’s Regional Medical Center opened on Friday. COVID-19 negative patient beds will free up space in area hospitals, where only 13 of the 150 ICU beds were available Friday, said Dan Lynch, the county’s director of emergency medical services.
Lynch said he expects them to use the Fresno Convention Center, which can accommodate up to 250 patients, given current demand.
Fresno and three neighboring counties have also taken the unprecedented step of sending paramedics to emergency calls to assess people. They won’t be taken to the emergency room if they could go to an urgent care center or wait a few days to talk to their doctors, Lynch said.
Some hospitals have canceled non-essential elective surgeries, such as hip replacements, which may require beds that may soon be needed for patients with COVID-19. Others increase staff hours or move patients to free up space.
“It simply came to our notice then. We’re being crushed, ”said Dr. Brad Spellberg, chief physician at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, which has more than 600 beds and is one of the largest hospitals in the county.
Spellberg said every day at his hospital over the past week has begun with no intensive care beds available and with a struggle to find space in spaces that don’t usually care for critical patients, such as post-surgery recovery areas.
“And they’re not just patients with COVID,” he said. “These are traffic accidents and heart attacks and victims of violence. They need a place to go to receive critical care. “
Growing demand may also be straining human resources.
“We still have physical beds available, but we need staff to care for patients. There is no point in sitting in bed without anyone caring for you, “Dr. Amy Herold, chief physician at Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “People work overtime over and over again and it’s exhausted and getting worse.”
John Chapman, president and CEO of San Antonio Regional Hospital in Upland, said telemetry nurses who monitor patients’ vital signs should not monitor more than four people, but could end up hiring five or six. due to the influx of cases.
“It definitely increases the risk of something going wrong,” he said.
Many emergency rooms have already been using outdoor tents to make more space, said Dr. Marc Futernick, an emergency physician in Los Angeles who serves on the board of the California chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians. A hospital that has outgrown its outdoor overflow tent is expanding to a nearby gym, he said.
However, coronavirus cases have not peaked in this third most devastating wave, and that means more drastic measures are on the horizon.
Attention rationing “is just around the corner,” Futernick said. “There is no feasible way to avoid this. The numbers are too high.”
As of Friday, the country’s most populous state recorded more than 41,000 new confirmed cases and 300 deaths, both among the highest total in a single day during the pandemic. Last week, California recorded more than a quarter of a million cases and 1,500 deaths.
California has begun receiving new vaccines against COVID-19. But the doses available are too scarce and too late to have an immediate impact on the rising infection rate.
The latest explosion of cases has been related to ignorance of the rules of social distancing during the Thanksgiving holidays. Health officials and workers expressed frustration that many people did not meet the mandatory safety standards to reduce the rate.
“All that comes, I don’t think any of us will be able to handle it,” Uffer said. “You have a dam that is about to break and you have to stop putting water in the dam.”
If people don’t limit upcoming trips and vacation meetings, the state could see an “upward rise,” Fauci said.
“I’m afraid it’s worse than what we saw in New York,” Futernick said. “When New York hospitals overflowed, health care providers came across the country.”
“None of this is happening right now and there’s no way it’s going to happen because all the seats are occupied,” Futernick said. “No cavalry is coming.”
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Taxis were reported from Orange County. Associated Press writers Adam Beam and Don Thompson contributed from Sacramento and Janie Har from San Francisco.