NEW: Internal messages highlight the growing strain that the coronavirus crisis is putting on hospital systems in the Houston region, where the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 has nearly quadrupled since Memorial Day.
Experts noted that it can take two weeks or longer for social distancing measures to lead to decreases in cases and hospitalizations.
Part of the problem, Peña said, is that when his crews arrive at a hospital with a patient suspected of having COVID-19, the hospital may have a physical bed open for them, but not enough nurses or doctors to staff it. That’s a problem that’s likely to deepen as a growing number of medical workers have been testing positive for the virus, according to internal hospital reports.
But the following day, after Abbott issued an executive order directing hospitals to limit elective surgeries — a measure intended to preserve hospital capacity but one that also hurts hospital revenues — the CEOs of four hospitals in the medical center abruptly dialed back their earlier warnings. They said they hadn’t meant to alarm the public. The hospitals still had room to add ICU beds, they said, both to treat COVID-19 and to continue caring for other patients.
In an interview Tuesday, Boom said he didn’t intend to suggest that there wasn’t reason to be deeply concerned about the number of COVID-19 patients filling hospital wards. He said he and other executives were trying to thread the needle between sounding the alarm about the growing but still manageable strain on hospital resources, while trying to reassure people who might need to come to the hospital for other ailments.
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