'If It Continues...We Will Absolutely Run Out Of ICU Beds': OC Sets Another Record For Daily COVID-19 Hospitalizations
SANTA ANA (CBSLA) — Orange County continued setting new daily COVID-19 hospitalization records Friday as health officials reported 97 additional patients had been admitted since the previous day.
The number of coronavirus patients hospitalized jumped from 1,025 on Thursday to 1,122 by Friday. The number of patients in intensive care units also rose from 257 to 265.
"It's not a time in America that we ever thought we would see where we started evaluating who needs the bed the most because the sickest have to go," said Leanne Prochnow, an ER nurse at Providence St Joseph's Hospital.
Prochnow said her hospital, like other hospitals all over, are starting to triage patients, or as nurses call it— "squeak for beds."
"That means that you kind of do the lottery to see who's the sicker patient that gets the next available bed because there's just that few," she said.
The previous record for ICU patients was in mid-July when 245 people were being treated. Since Dec. 2, the overall number of hospitalizations has been breaking records daily.
Meanwhile, the Orange County Health Care Agency reported 2,655 new coronavirus cases and 22 additional deaths.
The new numbers brought the county's totals to 97,302 cases and 1,662 fatalities.
Of the 22 deaths reported on Friday, four were skilled nursing facility residents and five lived in assisted living facilities.
The percentage of the county's available ICU beds dropped from 11.3% Thursday to 10.7% Friday, but according to a new state metric for "adjusted" ICU bed availability, the rate went from 3.5% to 2.3%, the HCA said.
County CEO Frank Kim said the "adjusted" case rate essentially reflects the estimated number of beds available for COVID-19 patients when factoring in the number of beds needed for patients without the coronavirus.
"If it continues with what we've seen over the last two weeks, we will absolutely run out of ICU beds," said Dr. Jim Keany at Mission Hospital.
Hospitals say it's not about space or even equipment — it's about people.
"As we are seeing nurses and physicians that are testing positive. Henceforth they are off the workforce for a period of time, and so it's staffing issues that we are having to confront and deal with," said Dr. Tirso del Junco with KPC Health Global Medical Centers.
"We don't have a ton of intensive care doctors we can pull out of thin air," said Tirso. "We also are very limited on nursing. There was a nursing shortage before COVID and this is only making it worse."
Something nurses like Prochnow acknowledge. But with six kids including 6-month-old twins, she's working as many shifts as she can and still keep herself and her family healthy.
"It's scary times in medicine, but at the same time this is what we all signed up for," she said.
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)