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Health officials in Austin, Texas issued a terrible warning on Friday that there are only about 16 staffed intensive care beds left for the entire region, an 11-county region that is home to more than two million people. people. This is the smallest number of intensive care beds available in the region since the start of the pandemic, the city said.
“The latest peak in COVID-19 is putting extraordinary pressure on our hospitals, emergency departments and healthcare professionals, and it has further strained hospital staff due to a long-standing shortage of ‘nurses,’ a group of hospitals said in a city statement.
All hospitals in Travis County – where Austin is located – and 10 other counties are part of what the state calls Trauma Region O. Trauma Region O serves about 2.3 million people, according to the city statement.
The Austin Public Health Department urged the community to act “as the situation becomes critical.”
“We are running out of time and our community must act now,” Dr Desmar Walkes of the Austin-Travis County Health Authority said in the city statement. “Our intensive care capacity is reaching a critical point where the level of risk for the entire community has increased dramatically and not just for those who need treatment for COVID. “
The dire numbers come as Austin battles a spike in hospital admissions. According to data collected by the City and County of Travis, the 7-day average of COVID-19 hospitalizations has increased by more than 47% over the past week. During this period, the number of COVID-19 patients in local intensive care increased from 91 to 117, an increase of 28%, and the number of ventilator patients increased from 47 to 65, an increase of 38%, according to the city’s statement.
In July, more than 4,600 new cases of COVID-19 and 19 deaths were reported to the Austin public health department, the city added.
In a statement shared at an Austin city council meeting on Tuesday, a local nurse practitioner said the capacity of their hospital’s intensive care unit had recently “exploded.”
“They are literally all on ventilators and / or ECMO lung bypass surgery,” the nurse practitioner wrote in the statement.
“I’m angry. I’m so angry,” they added. “I am also sad and dismayed. Round three is, was, entirely preventable. It’s devastating to see and experience firsthand.”
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