- Some patients in a Los Angeles hospital are now being treated in the gift shop and in the chapel as COVID-19 cases increase and capacity is limited.
- Los Angeles County COVID-19 cases continue to break records and many intensive care units have reached 0% capacity in recent weeks.
- Public health experts attribute the increase mainly to people who travel and visit friends and family while on vacation.
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A Los Angeles hospital is so overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases that it is now forced to treat some patients in the gift shop and the chapel, CNN reported.
Dr. Elaine Batchlor, CEO of Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital, said that if cases continue to increase, they may have to result in war techniques designed to ration care.
“We may be forced to do something that, as health care professionals, we all really hate to have to think about,” Batchlor told Brooke Baldwin of CNN.
The hospital serves poor communities in South Los Angeles, The New York Times reported.
Dr. Oscar Casillas, medical director of the hospital’s emergency department, told The Times that while the emergency department could normally handle about 30 people at a time, they saw up to 100 people a day in the midst of the pandemic.
The hospital’s waiting room is now a tent outside.
“Everything is protected up to the street,” said Casillas.
The Times said that patients with COVID-19 accounted for 66% of the community hospital’s capacity.
Similar situations are occurring in hospitals across Los Angeles County, especially in southern LA. Earlier this month, California activated its “mass fatality” program after deaths increased in the state. The program aims to ensure that local agencies are not overloaded. Southern California, which stretches over 56,000 square miles and has a population of nearly 24 million people, had 0% of the ICU’s capacity at the time.
LA County officials are now working to test samples of the new most transmissible strain of coronavirus, first discovered in the UK.
However, many health experts, including Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said the reason for the increase can be attributed to people ignoring social detachment and other protective measures during the season. on vacation.