LOS ANGELES (AP) – The number of coronavirus patients is so high in Los Angeles that on Tuesday it exceeded the usual capacity of the Martin Luther King Jr.
The hospital located in the southern part of the city, which has a capacity for 131 patients, cared for 215 patients, of which 135 suffer from COVID-19, said Jeff Stout, acting chief of operations and nursing.
The MLK is an example of what is happening in several hospitals in the largest county in the country, where the increase in coronavirus infections has overwhelmed medical personnel, caused oxygen shortages and led to the instruction of ambulance crews to stop transferring patients who could not be resuscitated in the place where their emergency occurred.
Stout said the hospital was outlining its critical care standards, which are guidelines for rationing treatment in times of shortages of staff, drugs or medical equipment.
“We are not there yet,” Stout said. “Every day, at all hours, we try to avoid reaching a critical state of care. The goal of critical care is never to use it ”.
Los Angeles continues to see a daily increase in hospitalizations, setting a new record Tuesday with nearly 8,000 inpatients, more than a fifth of whom were in intensive care. The county, which has a quarter of California’s 40 million inhabitants, has reported more than 40% of the 27,000 deaths from coronavirus in the state.
Los Angeles is the epicenter of the outbreak in California, which is expected to worsen in the coming weeks as several people took trips or meetings for Christmas or New Years. Much of the state is under a confinement order and open businesses operate with limited capacity.
The San Joaquin Valley and Southern California regions have been the hardest hit and no longer have the capacity in intensive care units to care for COVID-19 patients.
Fresno County’s top health official said he is closely monitoring the situation in Los Angeles County as it prepares for a seemingly inevitable holiday spike.
“I am extremely concerned to see an increase in the number of hospitalizations and deaths,” said Dr. Rais Vohra, Fresno’s internal director of health.
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