As COVID-19 continues to hammer Arizona, Tucson Medical Center provides an inside look at what hospitals are struggling with: not enough ICU beds, sick employees, staffing challenges and frustrating delays with COVID-19 testing.
TMC has treated multiple patients from hard-hit Santa Cruz County near the U.S./Mexico border, which has the highest rate of COVID-19 cases in the state.
What once was a smooth hospital routine has been upended, with new staff in the building, demanding hours and intense pressure on the hospital facilities team. More time is needed to put on and take off protective gear, and more time is needed to take calls from patients' families who need updates.Patients miss the visitors. The staff misses the visitors, too.Nurses are being asked to do four 12-hour shifts per week instead of three.
Parker upgraded six rooms on Wednesday and was scheduled to upgrade 10 more to keep pace with patient need. "We also go through on the inside. We have a little puffer smoke test and we put that at the door and make sure the room is truly negative. If it's not, then obviously we've got a problem someplace. Just setting it up was a big task and maintaining it to make sure we're protecting everyone in the building, that's another big task."
The hospital is one story, so some families are able to see their loved ones via window visits. On Wednesday, in the midafternoon heat, a middle-age man and two young adults stood under a ramada near the windows of the COVID-19 unit wearing fluorescent green visitor stickers. The young man in the group appeared to be crying.Hospitals across the state, including TMC, are making regular use of a surge line that was created by the Arizona Department of Health Services.
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