* Photo essay at https://reut.rs/3hOPbgm (Add a link to the COVID-19 graph in paragraph 9)
By Callaghan O’Hare and Maria Caspani
HOUSTON, July 29 (Reuters) – The scene inside the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston has become too familiar: the overwhelmed medical staff struggling to stem the wave of COVID-19 patients passing through hospital doors every day. days.
While in the pandemic’s first hot spots, such as New York, the medical emergency has waned, Texas is among the many US states struggling with a resurgence of the virus that is affecting their health systems.
Dr. Joseph Varon, medical director of the United Memorial Medical Center (UMMC), said he fears he will soon face a dilemma that many doctors elsewhere said they faced earlier in the pandemic: deciding who to save.
“I am afraid that at some point I will have to make very serious decisions,” he told Reuters in an interview. “I’m starting to get the idea that I can’t save everyone.”
Varon, 58, oversees the hospital unit dedicated to COVID-19 patients, where he said he cares for an average of 40 people per day. He said he signed more death certificates in the past week than at any other time in his career.
Earlier this month, Reuters followed the lung and critical care specialist on one shift as he hurried through the hallways, a small cohort of nurses and medical students beside him, pausing to inspect radiographs or medical records and monitor patients, sometimes offering words of comfort or reaching out to take their hand.
Many of those in Varon’s COVID-19 unit needed nasal tubes to help them breathe, some required intubation.
In the afternoon, the doctor and his team rushed to resuscitate a patient, performing CPR on the man who was later declared dead. Medical personnel covered his body with white sheets and wrapped him in a biohazard bag.
As the coronavirus pandemic that has gripped the nation for months showed little sign of a decline, frontline healthcare workers are often victims of the virus that has killed more than 150,000 people in the United States. (Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2P87LUu)
Varon’s team is no exception. Christina Mathers, a 43-year-old nurse at UMMC, was told she tested positive for COVID-19 last week after she reported feeling sick on her shift.
“That’s the hardest thing to hear … It bothers you,” said Mathers, who has been working every day since April 29. “But I wouldn’t go anywhere other than here.”
Varon, who was admitted to a hospital when a major earthquake struck Mexico City in 1985, said dealing with the virus has been incredibly challenging for medical professionals. “Throughout my life, I have been in great disasters,” he said. “Nothing has been so difficult to deal with (like) COVID.”
Riley Harrison, 67, said she began to feel breathless at work and that she struggled to get enough air in her lungs to call her wife, who also contracted the virus. Both are now hospitalized at UMMC.
“I couldn’t breathe,” Riley said in a whisper as oxygen flowed through the tubes in his nose. “If you have a death wish, play with COVID.”
Medical experts and officials have been sounding the alarm about the growing number of young people who are falling ill with COVID-19, warning that they should not dismiss it as a dangerous virus only for older people.
Larissa Raudales, 18, had trouble breathing and said her lungs ached when she was brought to UMMC. With medication, she was beginning to feel better.
“I was terrified … I thought I couldn’t breathe anymore,” she said. “I just thought he was going to practically die right there.”
Texas, along with California and Florida, has become one of the new national hot spots. So far in July, the state has more than doubled its cases to more than 400,000 in total. Deaths increased by 32%, or more than 1,000 lives lost, in the past week alone. But lately, the number of new cases has slowed and hospitalized patients with COVID-19 have dropped from record levels.
Dr. David Persse, the health authority for the Houston Department of Health, said hospitals in the area were “struggling” as they dealt with staff shortages to deal with a crisis that had dragged on for months.
“People who work in hospitals are exhausted … It has a physical and emotional cost to you,” he said. “It hasn’t always been pretty, but it’s been functional, and that’s why we call it a disaster.”
(Click https://reut.rs/3hOPbgm to see a related photo essay)
(Report by Callaghan O’Hare in Houston; additional report by Maria Caspani in New York; written by Maria Caspani; edition by Paul Thomasch and Lisa Shumaker)
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