Hospitals say CA Officials Too Slow in Virus Crisis

By CHRISTOPHER WEBER and DON THOMPSON Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — California reported its second-highest number of daily coronavirus deaths Wednesday with 459 lives lost, bringing the death toll to 2,504 in the last week as more than a quarter-million new weekly cases portended a continued overwhelming crush on hospitals and intensive care units strained to the breaking point. “The numbers are extraordinary,″ said Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association. “We’re not going to dodge this math. We need the state’s help.” Related Breaking the Chain of Survival? The Impact of COVID-19 on Prehospital CareHow Empress EMS (NY) Responded to COVID-19 in the Pandemic’s EpicenterWhat Does the Future Hold for EMS after COVID-19? Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration should immediately remove bureaucratic red tape that is hobbling medical workers for hours at a time and begin coordinating patient care at a statewide level, upending its usual decision-making process, she said. It’s not enough for California to ban certain elective surgeries in the hardest hit hospitals or order hospitals to accept patients from others that have exhausted their intensive care beds, she said. State officials did not immediately respond to her criticism of the public health order issued late Tuesday without prior notice to hospitals that are now scrambling to comply. Coronavirus cases have exploded across the nation since T...
Source: JEMS: Journal of Emergency Medical Services News - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: AP News Coronavirus California Hospital Source Type: news