Question for people that work at Hospitals

[ktex]

It really sucks that I can't trust what is reported and although I like what Abbott said earlier in the wk about there being plenty of beds/ventilators etc to handle the "surge",,,,I couldn't really find concrete info to back it up.

So, for you great men and women working in hospitals in our larger cities. Are we really getting close to reaching full capacity in our hospitals and is there a snowballs chance that it will happen as the # of positive cases increase?

[brysdad]

I’m not a medical professional but I have kept up with our local numbers. Our county is about 230k people. We have three hospitals but don’t know how many beds or ventilators we have. We’ve had 1,551 cases, 12 current hospitalizations and 5 total deaths. The deaths were from 60-80 years of age I believe. Our numbers have skyrocketed in the last 10 days but not our hospitalizations. Not sure what this means exactly.

[easeup]

my son works at a major city here in TX as the dr. on shift in the ER.
he says for two months he has been sent home early nearly every day/night because of no business.

[EarleyBird]

There are far bigger issues out there, and none of them are worth worrying about.

[Pony1971]

My daughter works at a hospital in Georgetown. She too had been having hours cut. However over the last 2 weeks she has not been sent home early. They were averaging 3-4 patients hospitalized with covid. She last worked Monday and had 8. When she went in today, they had 17.

[BrandonH]

Another hospital in our system is taking the majority of our covid patients & I just found out today they are opening another "covid unit". Numbers are climbing exponentially every day.

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[Fargus]

My wife has worked for the same system for the last 9 years in the ER. Most recently as a supervisor on nights. She was let go 3 weeks ago due to low census. It was a complete and total shock to us. She has been the only one working for the last 9 years.

[JasonS]

One thing to be careful of is not the number of beds, but the distribution. So, the entire state my have X number of beds. But, the specific area that has the highest number of covid patients may not. Also, some places are more qualified to take the covid patients, so again, some hospitals are more loaded down while smaller more rural hospitals may not be.

It’s not as clear cut as, the state has enough beds. There does seems to be an increase in the cases. I work in New Orleans, we peaked in April. Things have been going down for the most part. Lately, There has been a slight increase here, but nothing crazy. Also, we aren’t seeing the acuity as before.
My brother works in East Texas, they seem to be filling up.

The difference is, when I fill up in New Orleans it means 34 bed ICU is mainly CoViD. During our peak we had 3.5 icu floors, with each floor being about 34 patients.
In a rural hospital in east Texas, it means a 15 bed ICU is filling up.

[ThisLadyHunts]

I can speak for the city of Austin. My husband works with of the big three hospital networks for our region which covers Austin and many of the small towns/rural areas in the Central Texas region.

While the number of cases being reported has gone up, the hospitals in our network have seen only a slight increase in COVID cases recently; and this after seeing their COVID numbers beginning to drop going into the Memorial Day weekend. Plenty of beds open. As for vents, after it was discovered that patients‘ lungs respond better to being placed in a prone position (I.e., on their stomachs), they are no longer widely used (unless a patient has full blown pneumonia).

As for their revenue numbers, they’re still blown all to Hades. Patients are stay away from the three high-volume departments in droves: ED, surgery, and geriatric care.

[glen]

I can testify that ThisLady is 100% correct in the Austin area.

[Pedernal]

To further the discussion: Of the patients being hospitalized, what percentages are elderly? Already seriously ill prior to contracting convid 19??

[TX Doc]

No, hospitals are not anywhere near capacity. Hospitals have lost tons of money during all this because they were previously not allowed to perform elective procedures. Most facilities are running at a higher capacity now that elective surgery and procedures are being allowed again. The problem is the patient has to be cleared for covid first, but there are problems with the lab not being able to get the tests. The other reference lab we send tests to is backed up with results taking 5-10 days. There are plenty of ventilators around. The issue is that there are no treatments that have been scientifically proven to consistently help. The mortality rate of ventilated patients has generally ranged from 70-88% around the world. So honestly if a patient gets incubated and put on a ventilator they are probably not going to make it.

[double bogey]

I’m not a medical professional but I have kept up with our local numbers. Our county is about 230k people. We have three hospitals but don’t know how many beds or ventilators we have. We’ve had 1,551 cases, 12 current hospitalizations and 5 total deaths. The deaths were from 60-80 years of age I believe. Our numbers have skyrocketed in the last 10 days but not our hospitalizations. Not sure what this means exactly.

Is it possible that the case numbers being up but not the hospitalizations due to more folks being tested? Showing more positive, but not needing hospitalization?

My wife works as a scrub tech in labor and delivery and nothing has changed there. Babys are coming, covid or not. We do expect lots more babys around Thanksgiving through the new year.

[JasonS]

Again, capacity is different for different areas.
My brother works in a rural East Texas hospital. He is an ICU nurse. They are at thier capacity. They are transferring COVID positive people from their ER, multiple people per day. Their capacity is low d/t the smaller ICU/SD size.
They were transferring to some Houston hospitals, but then the Houston hospitals went on divert during the week, and people were being transferred to Dallas. I have a friend who is a CRNA in Houston, who also said they were diverting. So, the Houston Hospitals that were previously taking their patients, were reaching their capacity; Dallas seemed to have open beds.

It is all relative to the number of outbreaks in a specific area. If there are a lot, then that very specific area can be saturated. Also, the hospital still has to manage their normal patients, with the influx of new Coivd cases. A slow increase in admissions can be navigated through, a rapid increase is a different story.

On the other hand, I know people who were furloughed/laid off because of Covid. Is the same hospital my brother works. That specific hospital saw a decline in patients a few months ago, when people were scared to come in, and there were no covid cases to offset the decline in census. .

As far as case numbers go, a lot more people are being tested more easily. Louisiana is seeing an increase in cases. But some of the increase was d/t submissions from months ago I believe, so old data. It does seem the overall acuity of the cases is not what it used to be a few months ago. That being said, there are more new cases in central and west LA.

Treatment has gotten better, though there are tons of studies being put out, then being scrutinized heavily over the data because of a rush to publish. There is more restraint in placing these patients on a ventilator, as they seemed to do better off. There is a lot of issues with coagulopathies in these patients as well.

In New Orleans, , As far as lost money, yes. We lost hundreds of millions. We are not a full capacity. People are still scared to come into the hospital. The OR is not running at full capacity. CRNS, Nurses, techs are sent home early almost every day. Many clinics are not running close to full capacity.

I think we are very different here in New Orleans, because of how bad things got.

Every area is seeing different issues. I think that's why its hard, and their are differing stories coming out. It really depends on the areas.

[ThisLadyHunts]

To further the discussion: Of the patients being hospitalized, what percentages are elderly? Already seriously ill prior to contracting convid 19??

I don’t have numbers on this, but from what I hear, I high percentage of deaths are from that population. In fact, the CDC has asked that all deaths from diabetes, heart, or stroke be classified as a COVID death, whether the patient tested positive or not. People with those diseases imply an older population.