Los Angeles County ambulance crews told to ration oxygen amid surge in COVID-19 cases: report
Los Angeles County hospitals are so overwhelmed with COVID-19 sufferers that EMS staff had been told Monday to ration oxygen, in accordance to reviews.
The L.A. County Emergency Medical Services Agency issued a directive Monday detailing the decision.
“Given the acute need to conserve oxygen, effective immediately, EMS should only administer supplemental oxygen to patients with oxygen saturation below 90%,” the directive stated, in accordance to the Los Angeles Times.
The directive was made on the identical day the county stated 7,697 sufferers had been hospitalized with the virus. Of these, not less than 21% are in intensive care items. When the current surge started, in early-November, there have been about 791 folks hospitalized with COVID-19.
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A health care provider tends to a COVID-19 affected person at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills part of Los Angeles on Dec. 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
California officers not too long ago stated they had been having hassle getting the required quantity of oxygen to critically in poor health coronavirus sufferers, with provide points inflicting not less than 5 Los Angeles County hospitals to declare an “internal disaster,” which suggests they may flip away ambulances.
Coronavirus sufferers usually want 60 to 80 liters of oxygen a minute, whereas different sufferers might obtain six liters per minute. Dr. Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, L.A. County’s chief medical officer stated officers are exploring “every possible way to reduce the burden on the hospitals.”
“There’s a lot of actions that have been taken to improve the coordination of identifying patients really needing hospitalization and linking them up to where there’s an available bed, rather than stacking up ambulances outside an emergency department,” he told the L.A. Times.
In addition to the oxygen rationing, the company issued memos final week telling ambulance workers not to switch sufferers to the hospital who’ve nearly no probability of survival.
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In a matter of weeks, COVID-19 circumstances in the county have almost doubled — growing from 400,000 on Nov. 30 to greater than 800,000 on Jan. 2, in accordance to the Los Angeles Department of Public Health.
Officials fear the county is probably going to expertise a rise in circumstances related to the winter holidays.
To help with the scenario, California created a state oxygen staff, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers crews not too long ago arrived to update their oxygen delivery systems.
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“The State of California is continuously working to support our hospitals and protect the lives of Californians impacted by COVID-19. By working to upgrade challenged oxygen delivery systems at these older hospitals we can improve the ability to deliver life sustaining medical care to those who need it,” stated Mark Ghilarducci, Director of the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
