California’s health care system is being reduced to the strain of the country’s largest coronavirus outbreak and can fracture in weeks if people ignore the social distancing of the holidays, health officials warned, as the number of people who they needed beds and specialized care increased to levels hitherto unimaginable.
Top executives at the state’s largest hospital systems — Kaiser Permanente, Dignity Health and Sutter Health, which together cover 15 million Californians — said Tuesday that staff are increasingly depleted, many of whom have joined the service outside its normal functions, it now cares for patients stacked in COVID-19 in the hallways and conference rooms.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital General Manager. of Los Angeles, Dr. Elaine Batchlor said patients have gone to the gift shop and five stores outside the emergency department.
“We have no room for anyone. We have been keeping patients for days because we cannot move them or get them beds, ”said Dr. Alexis Lenz, an emergency physician at El Centro Regional Medical Center in Imperial County, in the southeast corner of the state. The facility has erected a 50-bed tent in its parking lot and was turning three operating rooms into antivirus care.
California closes 2 million confirmed cases of COVID-19. The state reported about 32,700 recently confirmed cases on Tuesday. Another 653 patients were admitted to hospitals, one of the largest hospitalization jumps in a day, for a total approaching 18,000.
State data models have predicted that hospitalizations could exceed 100,000 in a month if current rates continue.
The lack of staff is even more worrying than the lack of beds. The group of travel nurses is drying up as demand for them rose 44% over the past month, and California, Texas, Florida, New York and Minnesota called for more staff, according to the San Diego-based healthcare staff firm Aya Healthcare. .
“We’re now in a situation where we have surges across the country, so no one has many nurses left over,” said Dr. Janet Coffman, a professor of public policy at the University of California at San Francisco.
California is reaching out to places like Australia and Taiwan to meet the need for 3,000 temporary medical workers, especially trained nurses in critical care.
Across the country, outbreaks are being blamed for the lack of social distancing and wearing masks during Thanksgiving and officials fear an even worse increase if people gather for Christmas and New Year.
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Fresno County, in the agricultural valley of California, is in a desperate state. Dr. Thomas Utecht, chief physician at Fresno Community Medical Centers, recounted how medical staff see families crying daily, desperate patients and people dying in isolation rooms with their loved ones watching remotely.
Doctors and health officials are urging people to avoid gathering outside of their close families.
“If people don’t stay home … we’ll see something that costs me, not even imagine,” said Dr. Patrick Macmillan, a palliative care specialist in Fresno County. “I think it will break the health care system.”
Similar warnings were echoed across the country, from Tennessee, which sees the nation’s worst new COVID-19 infection per capita, to Mississippi and West Virginia, which surpassed their previous highs for deaths by viruses reported in a single day Tuesday.
Hospitals have an unprecedented load as the coronavirus crisis worsens in California. Hetty Chang reports on NBC4 News at 11pm on Tuesday, December 22, 2020.
The impact of COVID-19 is not limited to those infected. Lack of beds or nurses means there are long lines to the emergency room for other patients, such as those with heart attacks or trauma, and paramedics may have to wait for an emergency nurse to take care of them. ‘a patient cannot do so immediately. answer another call to 911, said Dr. Anneli von Reinhart, an emergency physician at Community Medical Center in downtown Fresno.
In full swing, the distribution of thousands of doses of COVID-19 vaccine to health workers marks the light at the end of the tunnel, but “it also looks like the tunnel is narrowing,” said interim Dr. Rais Vohra. Fresno County Health Officer.
“It’s just a race against the clock trying to get people through this tunnel in the safest way possible,” he said. “That’s exactly what it feels like to work right now on the front line.”
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Thompson reported from Sacramento, California. Associated Press reporters from across the US contributed to this report.