Monterey County hospitals: ‘Basically, our capacity now is zero.”
MONTEREY COUNTY, Calif. (KION) "Regardless of what the Bay Area ICU Capacity metric shows, I can tell you that basically our capacity now is zero, based on what we're already trying to do."
Dr. Martha Blum with the Community Hospital of Monterey County is one of the local health care officials expressing concerns about hospital capacity with KION today. She says the hospital is starting to see an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases from Thanksgiving, and she believes an even bigger increase is still coming.
Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a Regional Stay at Home Order that would apply to regions with an ICU capacity below 15%. Over the weekend, the Southern California and San Joaquin Valley regions fell below the threshold, and the order went into effect at 11:59 p.m. Sunday. It will be in effect until at least Dec. 28.
Monterey County is part of the Bay Area region. The ICU capacity is still at around 24.5% for the region, above the threshold for a stay at home order, but several counties have decided to issue orders early. Monterey County has not made that move.
There are 70 people hospitalized with COVID-19 at CHOMP and Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital out of the 105 total hospitalizations, and Dr. Allen Radner with SVMH says he is seeing a concerning increase in hospitalizations.
"I was there when we put a 26 year old on a ventilator. Numbers are rapidly increasing. Depending what you want to call an ICU bed we are all functioning as if ICUs are full. All of our hospitals have stopped elective procedures," he said.
In a statement, officials With the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System confirmed what Radner is seeing.
"As Dr. Radner expressed – we are full. We are making adjustments to how we are operating system wide so we can continue providing the best care to COVID-19 patients and to non-COVID patients. The immediate concern is not the number of beds, ventilators or other equipment – it is the human resources required in intensive care environments," Public Relations and System Communications Director Karina Rusk said in a statement.
The winter months are already among the busiest for hospitals as they handle respiratory illnesses and the flu.
At CHOMP, Blum says that based on licensed beds, all of the ICU beds are basically full and the surge beds are close to full.
The Monterey County Health Department reports Tuesday that there have been 16,840 confirmed COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, an increase of 238 from Monday. More than 130 Monterey County residents have died from causes related to the virus.
