Texas baby with COVID flown 150 miles due to lack of hospital beds

An 11-month-old baby with COVID-19 had to be airlifted more than 150 miles to a hospital in Temple, Texas because no pediatric hospital in Houston could accept it.

Video provided by Harris Health Systems to local television station KTRK shows the little girl being transported by air ambulance because there were no beds available in her hometown of Houston.

“She needed to be intubated immediately because she was having seizures,” said Patricia Darnauer, administrator at Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital in Houston. “We looked at the top five pediatric hospital groups and none [had beds] available.”

Officials across the United States are warning that the Delta variant is causing more children to be treated for severe symptoms of COVID, with many hospitals saying they are struggling to cope with the influx of new patents on the coronavirus of all ages.

Houston pediatrician Dr Christina Propst told KTRK: “Emergency rooms at major children’s hospitals here in Houston, the world’s largest medical center, are extremely crowded.

“They fill up, if not full, just like hospitals and intensive care units.”

The lack of pediatric beds in Houston may not be solely due to an increase in COVID cases, according to Propst and other medical providers.

Other factors include a slight increase in the number of children admitted with injuries such as fractures, which usually occurs during summer vacation. Towards the end of the holidays, back-to-school health checks also increase. Houston has also reported an increase in respiratory syncytial virus infections in children.

However, medical experts fear that the surge in COVID cases will worsen when children return to school, especially if they are not wearing masks.

“It is typical that two weeks after school we see a strong outbreak of strep and other sources of infection. We are preparing, not a question of when, it will be bad,” Darnauer said.

Propst added: “If the kids don’t hide in schools, that will be a major problem.”

Elsewhere, Mississippi officials said hospitals were grappling with the COVID outbreak to such an extent that there were only six intensive care beds available statewide on Wednesday.

In Tennessee, health professionals are urging parents to get their children vaccinated after two children die from COVID over a weekend at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis.

“What we’ve seen over the last week and a half is that the kids are coming in with pretty severe COVID symptoms. Respiratory symptoms and things of that nature,” Dr. Nick Hysmith, medical director of prevention of infections at Happiness. .

“If your child is 12 or older, please get him vaccinated. We see really sick children, and I think this is the best way to protect your children.”