Sun Belt hospitals are feeling the strain from virus’s surge — and bracing for worse.
In California, doctors are shipping patients as many as 600 miles way because they can’t be cared for locally. In Florida, nurses are pouring in from out of state to reinforce exhausted medical workers. And in Texas, mayors are demanding the right to shut down their cities to avoid overwhelming hospitals.
In a nation gripped by a record number of coronavirus cases — with severe outbreaks across multiple states and regions — medical systems are increasingly showing the strain, with shortages of critically needed personnel, equipment and testing.
And officials on Thursday said they are concerned that hospitals will soon hit a breaking point if the trajectory of ever-growing caseloads doesn’t change.
“We can withstand a surge. We can withstand a disaster. But we can’t withstand a disaster every single day,” said Jason Wilson, associate medical director of the emergency department at Tampa General Hospital. “How many jumbo jet crashes can you handle before you run out of capacity? That’s what we’re facing.”
The peril was reflected in another grim set of data out of Florida on Thursday, with the state reporting a record number of deaths — 156 — and adding nearly 14,000 new cases, its second-highest total to date. Across the state, nearly 9,000 people remain hospitalized for treatment of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
With patients flooding into emergency rooms, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said the city’s hospitals were at 95 percent capacity.
“We’re running pretty full now,” said Mark Knight, chief financial officer for Miami’s Jackson Health System.
Knight said there were 420 COVID-positive patients in the hospital Thursday along with another 175 “persons under investigation” who are suspected of having the virus and awaiting test results. That is many more than the peak of 167 positive patients the three-hospital system had experienced previously, he said.
Wilson, who is also a professor at the University of South Florida, said hospitals across the Tampa area were adding ICU capacity by the day, and shifting staff from other areas to meet the growing demand for care. With the average COVID-19 patient staying in the hospital for 12 days, Miller said, doctors were trying to treat patients remotely if at all possible to free up space.
The situation in Florida on Thursday was replicated, at least in part, across a broad swath of the country. Particularly in the South and the West, caseloads have grown exponentially in recent weeks as economies have reopened following the spring shutdown.
In California, the worst effects were being felt in the southern part of the state, where hospitals have been inundated. In Imperial County, along the Mexican border, doctors have been so overwhelmed by the demand for care that they have begun sending patients as far away as Sacramento — a nine-hour drive to the north.
“We’re going to do everything we can to stretch the pipeline. But at the end of the day there are only so many patients you can push through at a given time,” said Carmela Coyle, chief executive of the California Hospital Association.
Coyle said she was particularly concerned that hospitals across the southwest are all being pressured at the same time — or are bracing for it — making it more challenging for them to help one another.
“Our systems are built to address emergencies that are localized or regionalized. But in a pandemic like this, everybody is stressed,” she said. “Places cannot send help and assistance when everyone is bracing for the same experience.”
With medical staff in especially short supply, Defense Department teams began deploying to California hospitals this week to bolster the response. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, meanwhile, requested that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) send 1,500 nurses. Across Texas, mayors of some of the state’s biggest cities — including Houston and Austin — are so worried about staffing needs at local hospitals that they have asked for the authority to reimpose stay-at-home orders.
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In California, doctors are shipping patients as many as 600 miles way because they can’t be cared for locally. In Florida, nurses are pouring in from out of state to reinforce exhausted medical workers. And in Texas, mayors are demanding the right to shut down their cities to avoid overwhelming hospitals.
In a nation gripped by a record number of coronavirus cases — with severe outbreaks across multiple states and regions — medical systems are increasingly showing the strain, with shortages of critically needed personnel, equipment and testing.
And officials on Thursday said they are concerned that hospitals will soon hit a breaking point if the trajectory of ever-growing caseloads doesn’t change.
“We can withstand a surge. We can withstand a disaster. But we can’t withstand a disaster every single day,” said Jason Wilson, associate medical director of the emergency department at Tampa General Hospital. “How many jumbo jet crashes can you handle before you run out of capacity? That’s what we’re facing.”
The peril was reflected in another grim set of data out of Florida on Thursday, with the state reporting a record number of deaths — 156 — and adding nearly 14,000 new cases, its second-highest total to date. Across the state, nearly 9,000 people remain hospitalized for treatment of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
With patients flooding into emergency rooms, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said the city’s hospitals were at 95 percent capacity.
“We’re running pretty full now,” said Mark Knight, chief financial officer for Miami’s Jackson Health System.
Knight said there were 420 COVID-positive patients in the hospital Thursday along with another 175 “persons under investigation” who are suspected of having the virus and awaiting test results. That is many more than the peak of 167 positive patients the three-hospital system had experienced previously, he said.
Wilson, who is also a professor at the University of South Florida, said hospitals across the Tampa area were adding ICU capacity by the day, and shifting staff from other areas to meet the growing demand for care. With the average COVID-19 patient staying in the hospital for 12 days, Miller said, doctors were trying to treat patients remotely if at all possible to free up space.
The situation in Florida on Thursday was replicated, at least in part, across a broad swath of the country. Particularly in the South and the West, caseloads have grown exponentially in recent weeks as economies have reopened following the spring shutdown.
In California, the worst effects were being felt in the southern part of the state, where hospitals have been inundated. In Imperial County, along the Mexican border, doctors have been so overwhelmed by the demand for care that they have begun sending patients as far away as Sacramento — a nine-hour drive to the north.
“We’re going to do everything we can to stretch the pipeline. But at the end of the day there are only so many patients you can push through at a given time,” said Carmela Coyle, chief executive of the California Hospital Association.
Coyle said she was particularly concerned that hospitals across the southwest are all being pressured at the same time — or are bracing for it — making it more challenging for them to help one another.
“Our systems are built to address emergencies that are localized or regionalized. But in a pandemic like this, everybody is stressed,” she said. “Places cannot send help and assistance when everyone is bracing for the same experience.”
With medical staff in especially short supply, Defense Department teams began deploying to California hospitals this week to bolster the response. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, meanwhile, requested that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) send 1,500 nurses. Across Texas, mayors of some of the state’s biggest cities — including Houston and Austin — are so worried about staffing needs at local hospitals that they have asked for the authority to reimpose stay-at-home orders.
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