DFW Area Hospitals Admitting Record Numbers Of COVID-19 Patients
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Hospitals across the DFW area are starting to fill up like never before with COVID-19 patients.
"Across Texas Health Resources in North Texas we now have over a thousand positive patients in beds, and another several hundred that are people that are under investigation," said CEO of Texas Health Resources Barclay Berdan.
He told CBS 11 the system now has more COVID-19 patients than at any other time during the pandemic.
"What I'm worried about is where it's going to go in the rest of January, because we aren't feeling the effects of travel and Christmas and Kwanzaa in New Year's right now," Berdan said.
Texas Health Resources isn't alone.
Hospital systems across the area are stretched then.
According to the DFW Hospital Council, in Dallas County there are only 21 open ICU beds.
In Tarrant County only nine are open.
"It's going to continue to incrementally go up," said President of the DFW Hospital Council Stephen Love. "I think the entire month of January is going to be quite challenging from a hospital perspective."
Love said space and beds are not the issue as much as staff. The healthcare workers are already being pushed to the limit, with little backup available to help them out.
"If you have a hurricane or you have an earthquake, you can move staff throughout the nation to come in and help you there," Love explained. "There is little to no staff we can bring in because everyone is going through this."
Texas has set new highs for hospitalized COVID-19 patients seven times in the past eight days.
Nearly 16,000 new cases were reported Monday.
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