E.L. PASO, Texas – City / County Health Authority Dr. Hector Ocranza said late Monday night that the “uncontrollable” spread of Covid-19 in El Paso has increased hospital admissions by 33%.
That means one in three people are currently being treated for a virus-related illness at El Paso hospitals.
Describing the situation as “terrible”, he told county commissioners that Ocranza had warned El Paso to be “extremely vigilant” as the virus was currently spreading like wildfire from 350 active infections – the highest ever during an epidemic.
El Paso’s hospitals are on the verge of reaching capacity, healthcare officials said they are ready to put contingency plans in place.
The Chief Medical Officer of El Paso at the University Medical Center, Dr. “As we speak, we’re building more capacity, so we have enough resources to care for our patients,” said Joel Hendrix. Monday.
He indicated that UMC El Paso is working with emergency management officials and other Metro hospitals to address capacity issues.
“As we move forward with this epidemic, we have also identified other areas in which we can take care of our other patients and each hospital has the additional capacity that they accumulate,” Hendrix said.
UMC, for example, said there is an off-site medical facility on the westside of El Paso that can accommodate 13 non-covid hospital patients if needed.
Las Palmas del Sol Health Care officials will not mention how many Covid-19 patients are currently hospitalized in their two medical centers.
But officials said both hospitals have ‘additional plans’ in place that could increase capacity by converting existing rooms and beds into ICUs and / or negative air flow rooms.
Not to mention how many Covid-19 patients they are currently treating at Providence’s hospitals as well.
Speaking of his contingency plans, officials acknowledged in a statement that “this is a challenging time.” But they added, “The network of our hospitals has the capacity and capacity to care for the influx of patients.”
