Report: Video shows California hospital overwhelmed by COVID patients
–SFGate reports–
–A heart-wrenching video from the Washington Post captures what the surge really looks like for hospital workers in Apple Valley, a high desert community in San Bernardino County. St. Mary Medical Center has 213 hospital beds and 20 ICU spaces — but it’s way past capacity as it struggles to keep up with the ever-growing number of COVID patients.
“Every day we’re running at 200, 250% capacity. That includes the emergency department, the ICU, all of the inpatient units,” Randy Loveless, the interim director of St. Mary’s emergency department, told the Post. “We have well over double the number of patients that we were built to house.”
The video shows patients, some hooked up to oxygen tanks, coughing in wheelchairs in hallways. St. Mary calls them “COVID pods,” improvised spaces where they can administer intensive care aid to sick patients. In one day alone, the Post reports, 40 patients were treated in the pods.
Related article: LA Times report – California once quelled COVID with stay-at-home order. Why this one isn’t working as well.
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