In Texas, hundreds of patients are waiting to be admitted into hospitals, but there are no beds
Emergency room doctors in Southeast Texas say they are running out of hospital beds, and some patients are waiting hours, sometimes days to be admitted into a hospital.
“Are there patients dying because of this that might not have died? Absolutely, yes,” said Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council CEO, Darrell Pile. “I am very concerned about the fatalities that are about to happen.”
As of Friday afternoon, Pile says 482 patients were waiting for hospital beds in his 25-county region. He said 211 of those patients are COVID-19 positive.
An additional 120 patients are waiting for an ICU bed. Of those patients, 65 are COVID-19 positive.
“The poor nurses and doctors and respiratory therapists can’t see all the patients that are mounting in the lobby, and now we have patients waiting in parking lots and we have patients waiting in the back of ambulances in parking lots. It’s a gridlock at the emergency department level,” Pile told KPRC 2. [Continue reading…]