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California’s healthcare system is warping under pressure from the nation’s largest coronavirus outbreak and could fracture within weeks if people ignore social distancing during the holidays, health officials have warned as the number of people in need of specialized beds and care has reached levels previously unimaginable.
Senior executives from the state’s largest hospital systems – Kaiser Permanente, Dignity Health and Sutter Health, which together cover 15 million Californians – said on Tuesday that increasingly exhausted staff, many of whom are being forced to work outside of their normal duties, now caring for the stacked COVID-19 patients. in hallways and conference rooms.
Los Angeles Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital CEO Dr Elaine Batchlor separately said patients spilled into the gift shop and into five tents outside the emergency department.
“We don’t have room for anyone. We’ve been keeping patients for days because we can’t get them transferred, we can’t get beds for them, ”said Dr Alexis Lenz, emergency physician at the Imperial County El Centro Regional Medical Center in the southern corner. -East. of State. The facility erected a 50-bed tent in its parking lot and converted three operating theaters into anti-virus care.
California is approaching 2 million confirmed cases of COVID-19. The state reported nearly 32,700 newly confirmed cases on Tuesday. Another 653 patients were admitted to hospitals – one of the largest single-day hospital admissions – for a total of nearly 18,000.
State data models have predicted that hospitalizations could reach 100,000 in a month if current rates hold.
The lack of staff is even more worrying than the lack of beds. The pool of available travel nurses is drying up as demand for them has jumped 44% over the past month, with California, Texas, Florida, New York and Minnesota asking for the most additional staff, according to the San Diego-based healthcare staffing company, Aya Healthcare. .
“We are now in a situation where we have surges all over the country so no one has a lot of nurses to spare,” said Dr. Janet Coffman, professor of public policy at the University of California at San Francisco. .
California is reaching out to countries like Australia and Taiwan to fill the need for 3,000 temporary medical workers, especially nurses trained in critical care.
Across the country, outbreaks are blamed on lack of social distancing and wearing masks during Thanksgiving, and officials fear an even worse surge if people gather for Christmas and New Years.
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Fresno County, in California’s central agricultural valley, is in dire straits. Dr Thomas Utecht, Chief Medical Officer of Fresno Community Medical Centers, shared how medical staff see sobbing families, desperate patients and people dying in isolation wards with loved ones watching from a distance on a daily basis.
Doctors and health officials implore people to avoid congregating outside of their immediate families.
“If people don’t stay at home … we’re going to see something that is, it’s hard for me to even imagine,” said Dr. Patrick Macmillan, hospice specialist in Fresno County. “I think it will break the health care system.”
Similar warnings echoed across the country, from Tennessee, which is experiencing the country’s worst new increase in COVID-19 infection per capita, to Mississippi and West Virginia, which topped their previous highs for deaths by virus reported in a single day Tuesday.
Hospitals bear an unprecedented burden as the coronavirus crisis worsens in California. Hetty Chang is reporting for NBC4 News at 11 p.m. 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 in the emergency room for other patients, such as those with a heart attack or trauma, and paramedics who have to wait for a nurse. Emergencies attend to a patient may not be able to do so immediately answer another 911 call, said Dr. Anneli von Reinhart, an emergency physician at the Downtown Fresno Regional Community Medical Center.
In the midst of the outbreak, the distribution of thousands of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to health workers marks the light at the end of the tunnel but “it also feels like the tunnel is narrowing,” said Dr Rais Vohra, temp worker. Fresno County Health Officer.
“It’s just a race against time to try to get people through this tunnel in the safest way possible,” he said. “That’s exactly what it feels like to be working on the front lines right now.”
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Thompson reported from Sacramento, California. Associated Press reporters from across the United States contributed to this report.
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