Hospital officials on Tuesday urged citizens to follow coronavirus precautions as cases increase, staffing and local hospital space decrease to dangerous levels.
At Riverside Community Hospital, where officials said 214 COVID-19 patients are currently admitted, a former cafeteria was converted last weekend as an alternative care space to serve the growing number of patients who they were waiting for a hospital bed in the emergency department.
“What I see is devastation,” hospital nurse Annette Greenwood told City News Service. “I’ve been a nurse for 33 years and I’ve never seen anything like it.”
He said the current increase in coronavirus cases is mainly attributed to Thanksgiving meetings. The potential impact of the Christmas holidays has only just begun to show.
“I don’t think we’ve seen at all what the Christmas increase will be like. And that’s what scares us to death. They’re talking about doubling the numbers we’re seeing right now and that would overwhelm us,” Greenwood said.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday that Americans could expect to begin receiving direct relief payment from COVID-19 by direct deposit as early as Tuesday evening.
The California National Guard deployed nine members of its doctors
bodies to assist the hospital emergency department and six nurses to assist them
ICU, but officials said the hospital had no staff, with an ICU
completely full.
“There are no additional resources to earn in terms of nurses,” Greenwood said. “People are collecting extra shifts. They’re all for these patients with COVID. You can’t have your family with you because of the risk, so we pray with these patients, we help them call their families, we sing with “And when we need it, we will be the last to hold on before people go into eternity. And so the emotional tension, along with the physical, is overwhelming for the team.”
Kaiser Permanente Riverside and Moreno Valley Medical Centers reported that their intensive care units are also ready and have had to turn conference rooms, waiting rooms and other areas of hospitals into patient care areas such as apart from his overvoltage plan.
The facility is treating 211 COVID-19 patients combined, officials said.
Officials at Riverside University Health System Medical Center said the facility was implementing an overvoltage plan and its ICU was excessive, with beds in other parts of the hospital filling up quickly.
“I can’t get enough to say please put on a mask, please social distance. Don’t get together on New Year’s Eve, please don’t,” Greenwood said.
As of Monday, coronavirus hospitalizations across the county were 1,367, 40 more than Thursday, according to RUHS. This includes 282 intensive care patients, 27 more than last week.
This number of people with COVID-19 in intensive care units has increased by 151% since 27 November.