Field hospitals in the Inland Empire will not be activated, despite the increase in coronavirus patients filling the region’s medical centers, authorities in Riverside and San Bernardino counties confirmed on Wednesday, December 30.
There are no plans to open the locations in Riverside County, Riverside and Indio, which included 250 beds, and the locations in San Bernardino County, the fairgrounds in Victorville and the Orange Show National Events Center in San Bernardino, along with a young unused detention center in Apple Valley.
There is not enough staff to manage the facilities of an old department store in Riverside and the county fairground in Indio, said Shane Reichardt, a senior public information specialist in the county’s emergency management department. Furthermore, the Federal Medical Stations, which arrived in the county in March and April, are not suitable for the type of care needed during the pandemic, he said.
The unavailability of field hospitals is a blow to efforts to help hospitals that are full of seriously ill patients with COVID-19. As of Monday, December 28, a record 1,448 coronavirus patients were in Riverside County hospitals, with 287 in intensive care.
Pressure on local and state hospitals prompted Governor Gavin Newsom to impose a new home order, which has recently been extended to southern California.
On Tuesday, several Riverside County hospital chains, in a joint press release, warned that they were “in crisis caring for more patients with COVID-19 than they can handle.” They asked the public to stay at home, practice social detachment, wear masks and wash their hands to alleviate a wave of patients treated in cafeterias and hospital warehouses.
The arrival of field hospitals was hailed by officials this spring as part of the county’s plans to withstand a wave of COVID-19. The California National Guard transferred federally supplied beds and other hospital equipment to the Indio fairground and former Sears on Arlington Avenue in Riverside for use – 125 beds in Indio, 125 in Riverside – as needed.
“We know that we will have more cases and some of them will be serious,” said Dr. Cameron Kaiser, a county public health officer, in a March press release about the Indio hospital. “This medical station will relieve stress in our hospitals, allowing them to provide better levels of care for our sickest individuals and get more people to recover faster.”
But on Wednesday, Reichardt said the authorities found that field hospitals were planned for an earthquake or similar event that caused cuts, bruises and other minor trauma to the victims.
“What we’ve learned, for something like a pandemic, is that (field hospitals) are not able to provide the right kind of care that we need most,” said Reichardt. “So, when you look at the bed situation in the ICU, these patients could never be treated the same in (a field hospital).”
Even if they could, there are not enough staff to run field hospitals, Reichardt said. Field hospitals came with staff, but they were sent elsewhere to help besieged hospitals, he added.
Another challenge, Reichardt said, is that field hospital beds are 1.8 m apart, with no walls or ventilation, increasing the risk of an outbreak if someone with the virus is treated there.
“If we didn’t have personnel challenges, (field hospitals) could be a more viable option,” said Reichardt.
Without the help of field hospitals, hospitals are implementing their emergency plans, said Reichardt. “Obviously, our system is stressing and we have to continue to evaluate it and try to find ways to meet the needs.”
Contacted by email, Justine Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, said the field hospitals “are embedded in the state’s response and there are no facilities currently planned for San Bernardino County.”
Arrowhead, administered by the county, received a “portable structure” that is in the hospital parking lot and is part of its recovery plan, said Rodriguez. “The priority is to keep people in the hospital buildings … and activate the tent only when the first strategy is exhausted.”
Earlier this year, officials from San Bernardino County said the three sites could be converted into field hospitals, if necessary.
Rodriguez said these sites “were for the potential use of local hospitals” and any decision to activate Federal Medical Posts in the county would come at the state or federal level.
Riverside County supervisor V. Manuel Perez said that county officials initially thought that field hospitals provided by the federal government could help. “I think we all had expectations that, at that point, were not realistic. Maybe we just didn’t know what a (Federal Medical Station) would be for, ”he said.
“I’m not a doctor. I am not a person who works in emergency services. As a policy maker, I was hoping that our (field hospitals) would be an entity capable of providing more services…. We now learn that this is not the case. “
Perez said he hopes to work with state or federal officials to get more staff and resources “in order to really mobilize” field hospitals.