Can California avoid a third devastating COVID-19 winter wave? Cautious signs of hope
Updated (June 20, 2020)
This article was originally published by The Conversation and is reproduced here with permission. The original article can be found here.
In the United States, more than half of the country’s population lives in cities and counties that do not have access to enough hospital beds to cope with the number of COVID-19 patients. But even though California is home to more than one million people in a dozen cities, almost two-thirds of the state remains unserved by a hospital with the capacity to treat a single confirmed case.
As more cases are confirmed and the number of patients increases, Californians have been asking — and not always being answered — why they are not seeing up-to-date information on hospital resources. And they worry about their ability to get the care they need.
That is why, with the goal of providing the public more information about current hospital capacity and capacity limitations in Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to open up two new county hospitals and to begin a dialogue with local hospitals and experts about increasing emergency room capacity.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (BOS) voted to open up hospitals in unincorporated areas, including Sherman Oaks, the Sepulveda Basin, and the Westchester corridor, as well as expanding community hospital access. The decision was made under the county’s Emergency Services Plan and, as such, the BOS must still approve any funding request for the expansion of these hospital beds.
“The hospital expansion comes with a price. We are asking hospitals to open emergency room to non-COVID patients and to accept private patient transfers to L.A. County facilities,” Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich said. “We are asking hospitals to accept private patient transfers when there is an immediate and public need for critical, emergent care with no risk to the public if the hospital was already crowded. The cost of these measures could amount to $27 million for non-COVID patient transfers and $14 million to open
