California Hospital Staff Struggle To Keep COVID-19 Patients Alive

California hospitals are overwhelmed: a hospital near Los Angeles is struggling to keep COVID-19 patients alive.

According to the LA Times, Hospitals up and down the state report that their beds are filling up fast, staffers are tiring and medications used to treat coronavirus patients are running low. The surge has hit California unevenly, with some facilities reporting their numbers staying flat in recent weeks, while others have risen sharply.

“We’re getting to the point where we’re just overwhelmed — emotionally, physically exhausted. We don’t have enough workers for all these patients; we’re working extra shifts,” said Mary Lynn Briggs, an intensive care unit nurse at Mercy Hospital in Bakersfield. “I’m expecting things to go from bad to worse over at least the next couple of weeks.”

Statewide, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has increased nearly 50% over the last two weeks and the number has continued to climb every day. On Saturday, 6,322 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in California.

Photo: Getty


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