In Texas, today, we can die of a benign disease as the hospital system is saturated with Covid patients. Daniel Wilkinson, 46, a former soldier who spent more than two years in Afghanistan, died on August 22 of a gallstone. His relatives and doctors saw his condition deteriorate but they were unable to hospitalize him, most of the forces being dedicated to the often heavy treatments of people with coronavirus.
Houston may be home to the largest medical district in the world, the state is failing to stop the spread of the Delta variant and its hospitals are overcrowded. This Monday, 13,782 patients are hospitalized, according to state data, of whom 2,891 are sedated in an intensive care unit. Since the beginning of July, the number of hospitalized patients has increased tenfold. And in 24 hours, 1,740 new patients were admitted with a severe form of coronavirus.
“Our hospitals are almost full,” confirms Roberta Schwartz, executive vice president of Houston Methodist Hospital, a local hospital group. “In previous waves, we had just over 750 patients. Now we have between 820 and 850 ”. Due to lack of space, a meeting room was transformed into a care unit.
“Rural hospitals are desperately trying to find where to send their patients”
CBS News told Daniel Wilkinson’s story. The veteran suffered from gallstone pancreatitis, which is when a gallstone blocked a duct leading to the pancreas, causing inflammation. He was hospitalized on August 21 in the only hospital in his county, one block from his home, in the town of Bellville, 4,000 inhabitants. The establishment immediately sought to organize its transfer by helicopter to Houston, a routine procedure that usually takes about 30 minutes. “Our team and our doctor worked without a break for more than six hours to try to obtain this transfer,” laments Daniel Bonk Fache, CEO of Bellville Medical Center, to AFP. A doctor offered to take the patient to his hospital near Austin, the capital, before changing his mind five minutes later: no more room.
“Every day, we get calls from people in charge of rural hospitals who are desperately trying to find where to send their patients,” says John Henderson, president of the Torch association, which brings together these establishments. Huge, Texas has 158, more than any other state. According to Henderson, Daniel Wilkinson’s case is no exception, averaging one a day.
To alleviate the emergency, Texas is providing these rural hospitals with respirators, oxygen and monoclonal antibodies that help stabilize patients. A system to bring in nurses from other states is also being put in place.
The state is experiencing strong opposition to health restrictions, won by the very conservative Governor Greg Abbott, and reluctance to face the vaccine. In Texas, 49.3% of the 29 million people have been fully immunized. This is much lower than the US average of 54.2%.
If the Texan caregivers note that almost all the patients were not vaccinated before contracting the Covid, they also notice the tumble in the age pyramid of the patients: the thirties are the most contaminated, followed by young people in their twenties. And even very young: this weekend alone, according to the state health department, 345 children were hospitalized. As of Sunday there were only 73 beds available in pediatric intensive care units.
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