‘Field hospital’ in works to alleviate coronavirus patient spike at Fresno-area hospitals
CORRECTION: A prior version of this story misstated the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Tulare County as of Dec. 15. The correct numbers for that date were 962 new cases; 26,669 cases to date, and two additional deaths, 330 total deaths to date.
A medical team working under a contract with the Fresno County Department of Public Health is working with Community Regional Medical Center to establish a 50-bed alternative-care unit to help take stress off of hospitals across Fresno County as coronavirus cases continue to surge.
“Fifty beds is a huge boost,” Fresno County emergency services administrator Dan Lynch said Tuesday.
The for-hire medical team is from Virginia-based AMI Expeditionary Healthcare, which specializes in providing staff to bolster local health care resources in times of crisis. Lynch said Tuesday that the company was originally hired on a standby basis earlier this year in anticipation of activating a 250-bed “field hospital” prepared by the state at the Fresno Convention Center.
Most of the group is already in Fresno, and the full complement of the team is expected to arrive by the end of this week.
While Lynch said the Convention Center site is going to be needed within the next few weeks to handle overflow from hospitals across Fresno County and central California to make way for more a growing number of COVID-19 patients, the AMI team is first collaborating with Community Regional to set up its alternative site at the North Plaza of the hospital’s downtown Fresno campus.
Once that site is up and running, the team will be redeployed to the Fresno Convention Center site.
Dr. Rais Vohra, the county’s interim medical officer, said the extra 50 beds at Community Regional “will allow them to decompress some of the inpatient wards,” and that in turn can free up space in units that handle patients who are recovering from stays in hospitals’ intensive-care units.
“Whenever you’re able to make space in one part of the hospital, sometimes that opens up space in other parts of the hospital,” Vohra said. “We can’t just create ICU beds from nothing, but it does help to decompress other areas of the hospital.”
ICUs at hospitals across Fresno County are effectively full; as of Monday, 16 intensive-care beds were available from a countywide licensed ICU capacity of 149 beds. But Lynch said that at some hospitals, ICU patients are having to be treated in emergency rooms, sometimes for 24 hours or more, while they wait for space to open up in the ICU.
In Fresno County and neighboring Kings, Madera, Merced and Tulare counties, hospitals reported having 865 patients with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases on Monday. Of those, 112 were in intensive care. Out of 312 licensed ICU beds, 16 were available on Monday to accommodate new patients.
Vohra said, however, that he expects the continued surge in the number of new infections surfacing each day in Fresno County will inevitably lead to more hospitalizations, as well as more deaths to the virus.
“We’re just trying to buy time. We want everyone to get vaccinated,” Vohra said. “For some of us, unfortunately, we’re going to be too late, and that just breaks my heart for all these families who are going to lose a loved one on the cusp of turning the tide of this pandemic.”
Since its previous update on Friday, Fresno County reported 15 additional deaths Tuesday attributed to the novel coronavirus and the respiratory disease it causes. Those bring the total death toll in the county to 557 since the first cases of COVID-19 were confirmed locally in early March.
Around the Valley
Tuesday’s coronavirus case updates from central California counties included:
Fresno County: 612 new cases, 44,726 to date; 15 additional deaths, 557 to date.
Kings County: 162 new cases, 13,653 to date; no additional deaths, 100 to date. Almost 6,300 of Kings County’s cases have been among inmates at state prisons in Avenal and Corcoran.
Madera County: 101 new cases, 8,120 to date; no additional deaths, 107 to date.
Mariposa County: One new case, 181 to date; no additional deaths, four to date.
Merced County: On Tuesday, the state reporting 188 new cases and a total of 14,572 to date; no additional deaths, 207 to date. Merced County’s health department has not provided an update since Friday, when it reported 14,483 cases and 207 deaths to date.
Tulare County: 962 new cases; 26,669 to date; two additional deaths, 330 to date.
Throughout the six-county region, almost 108,000 residents have tested positive for COVID-19 at some point since early March. Of those, 1,307 people have died from the disease.
This story was originally published December 15, 2020 at 5:24 PM.
