The Texas County Hospital, one of the poorest in the US, will send COVID-19 patients home to die if they are deemed too sick to receive treatment.
- Starr County Memorial Hospital, located in a county in South Texas, has established a so-called “death panel”
- A committee will review all coronavirus patients and send home those deemed too weak, sick, or elderly to receive treatment.
- The hospital’s eight-bed COVID unit is packed with 28 patients, including three with ventilators.
- Starr County, one of the poorest in the US, currently has 1,700 confirmed cases of the virus and 17 deaths.
- The county judge reissued a stay-at-home and curfew order, and all schools will begin online learning until at least the end of September.
A rural Texas county says it will now send sicker COVID-19 patients home to die as it struggles to contain the outbreak.
Starr County, which is on the Rio Grande, had no cases at once, but now says its only hospital is overflowing and is running out of beds and supplies.
The county health board was forced to form a so-called “death panel” for Starr County Memorial Hospital.
A committee will review all coronavirus patients while visiting to determine what type of treatment they need and how likely they are to survive.
People deemed too sick, too weak, or too old will be sent home.
Starr County Memorial Hospital (pictured) in Texas has established a so-called “death panel” to screen all coronavirus patients and send home those deemed too weak, sick, or elderly for treatment .
The hospital’s eight-bed COVID unit is packed with 28 patients, including three with ventilators. Photo: Coronavirus patients at a hospital in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, July 20
“There is no place to put these patients,” hospital president Dr. José Vázquez told the media on Tuesday, according to the Border Report.
“The entire state of Texas and neighboring states do not have ICU beds to spare for us.”
Vazquez said there will be an ethics committee and a selection committee to review each case.
‘End-of-life decisions and hospice decisions and comfort care situation for all those patients who certainly have no hope of improvement, we believe they will be better cared for in the love of their own family and home rather than thousands of miles away dying alone, “he said.
Starr County, home to approximately 64,000 people, currently has 1,700 confirmed cases of virus cases and 17 deaths.
While the absolute number seems small, the county has reported 92 cases per 100,000 people every day for the past week.
According to the Harvard Global Health Institute, that’s the eleventh highest rate in all of Texas.
Starr County is one of the poorest counties in the US with an average household income of only $ 27,000 and a poverty rate of approximately 35 percent.
The hospital only made room for an eight-bed coronavirus unit, but is currently treating 28 patients, three of whom are on ventilators and one in the emergency room.
‘The number of cases we see in the emergency room is growing every day. Fifty percent of the cases in the emergency room are COVIDOS, ‘said Vazquez, according to the Border Report.
‘The situation is desperate. We cannot continue to function at Starr County Memorial Hospital the way things are going. The numbers are astonishing.
It is a real change for Starr County, which went three weeks without cases at the start of the pandemic.
Officials banned large gatherings, imposed a mandatory curfew, and evaluated all symptomatic individuals whether or not they had health insurance.
However, after Governor Greg Abbott began reopening the state in May, cases began to skyrocket.
Vasquez said the hospital had been sending patients to other counties and nearby states, but now they are also overwhelmed.
“For all those patients who certainly have no hope of improvement, they will be better served within their own family in love with their own home rather than thousands of miles away dying alone in a hospital room, ‘he said.
On Thursday, Starr County Judge Eloy Vera reissued a stay-at-home and curfew order, effective until August 10.
A separate order determined that the school year will begin in August with online instruction until at least the instruction continues as such until September 27, The Monitor reported.
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