Hospital officials on Tuesday implored the public to take precautions against the coronavirus as cases increase and staff and space in local hospitals decrease to dangerous levels.
At Riverside Community Hospital – where officials said there are currently 214 COVID-19 patients – a former cafeteria was converted as an alternative care space last weekend to accommodate the wave of patients waiting for a hospital bed in the emergency department.
“What I see is destruction,” Annette Greenwood, the hospital’s chief nurse, told City News Service. “I’ve been a nurse for 33 years and I’ve never seen anything like it.”
She said the current spike in coronavirus cases is mainly due to Thanksgiving gatherings. The possible impact of the Christmas holidays is only starting to become visible.
“I don’t think we’ve seen what the Christmas wave is going to be like again. And that’s what scares us to death. They’re talking about doubling the numbers we’re seeing now and that would overwhelm us,” Greenwood said.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Tuesday that Americans could expect to receive their direct COVID-19 direct payment direct payment on Tuesday evening.
The California National Guard has deployed nine medical members
corps to assist the hospital’s emergency department and six nurses to assist the
ICU, but officials said the hospital is short of staff, with an ICU at least
completely full.
“There is no additional resource to be gained in the nursing field,” Greenwood said. ‘People take up extra shifts. They are everything for these COVID patients. You can’t have your family with you because of the risk, so we pray with these patients, we help them call their families, we sing along with them and if necessary, we are that final touch to hold before enter eternity. And so the tension emotional, along with physical, is just overwhelming for the team. ”
Kaiser Permanente’s Riverside and Moreno Valley medical centers reported that their intensive care units were also occupied and that they needed to convert conference rooms, waiting rooms and other areas of the hospitals into patient care areas as part of their overload plan.
The facilities are treating a total of 211 COVID-19 patients, officials said.
Riverside University Health System-Medical Center officials said the facility was implementing a surge plan and the ICU was overcapacity, with beds in other areas of the hospital filling up quickly.
I just can’t reach enough to say, please wear a mask, please social distance. Don’t get together on New Year’s Eve, please don’t, ”Greenwood said.
According to RUHS, there were 1,367 hospital admissions nationwide as of Monday, up from 40 since Thursday. That includes 282 patients in intensive care, 27 more than last week.
That number of people with COVID-19 in intensive care units is up 151% since Nov. 27.