Overflowing hospital morgues, increasing the waiting time by 911, beds opening only when patients die. Hospitals in California, where nearly all of the state’s 40 million residents live on orders to stay at home, are experiencing historic stress points.
The rise in new cases of coronaviruses and hospitalizations is driving Los Angeles County hospitals to the “brink of catastrophe,” said a senior health official there.
In just over a month, Los Angeles County doubled its number of infections, from about 400,000 cases on November 30 to more than 800,000 cases on January 2, health officials said on Monday.
The deluge of cases resulted in a sudden increase in patients with Covid-19, overburdening hospitals and reducing the capacity of the intensive care unit across the region to zero. There are now more than 7,600 people hospitalized with Covid-19 in the county, 21% of whom are in the ICU, officials said.
With no hospital beds available, teams of county ambulances were instructed not to transport patients with little chance of survival. And transported patients often have to wait hours before a bed is available.
“Hospitals are declaring internal disasters and having to open church academies to serve as hospital units,” said supervisor Hilda Solis, calling the situation a “human disaster”.
And one person dies from the virus every 15 minutes, said Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer.
With the increase in hospitalizations, the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency (EMS) instructed ambulance teams not to transport patients with little chance of survival to hospitals and to conserve oxygen use.
Before the pandemic, when health professionals and resources were more available, patients who were unlikely to recover could be transported by ambulance to the hospital for treatment.
But Los Angeles hospitals are now full and many medical facilities have no space to receive patients who have no chance of survival, the agency said. Patients whose hearts have stopped despite resuscitation efforts, the county EMS said, should no longer be transported to hospitals.
“With immediate effect, due to the severe impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on EMS and recipient hospitals 9-1-1, adult patients (18 years of age or older) in traumatic and blunt non-traumatic cardiac arrest (OHCA) must not be transported [if]the return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) is not achieved in the field, “the agency said in a memo issued to ambulance workers last week.
If there are no signs of breathing or pulse, the EMS will continue to perform resuscitation for at least 20 minutes, the memo said. If the patient is stabilized after the resuscitation period, he will be taken to the hospital. If the patient is declared dead on the spot or if the pulse cannot be restored, paramedics will no longer transport the body to the hospital.
And even after arriving at hospitals, some paramedics have to wait hours outside, as hospitals generally do not have enough beds to receive patients.
“We are waiting at least two to four hours to reach a hospital and now we have to drive even more … then wait another three hours,” EMT Jimmy Webb told CNN affiliate KCAL.
Local officials tried to encourage the public not to call 911 unless “they really need it,” said Dr. Marc Eckstein, commander of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s emergency department, to CNN’s KABC affiliate.
“I think the next four to six weeks will be critical for our system to be taxed,” added Eckstein.