- Driven by the Delta variant, Florida is experiencing the most devastating Covid-19 surge to date.
- The hospital is in trouble again, waiting time is getting longer and longer, and oxygen is limited.
- More than a year later, the doctors and medical staff told Insider that the losses caused by this struggle were heavy.
- For more stories, please visit Business Insider.
Recently, Ed Jimenez was walking in the lobby of the University of Florida Health Shands Hospital when he met a nurse.
The relentless pandemic has sometimes made it difficult for Jimenez, the chief executive of the Gainesville Teaching Hospital, which has more than 1,000 beds.
“Everyone I spoke to showed a wonderful appearance:’We got this. We are helping people,” he recalled in an interview with Insider this week.
Nevertheless, he could still see the pain in their eyes. The nurse reminded him of what has become one of the most thought-provoking scenes of the pandemic.
The nurse told him: “When we are walking on this road and someone cannot succeed, we go to the family so at least they can say goodbye through the glass window,” she told him.
The explosion of the highly spreading Delta variant In trouble In the most vicious fight against this disease in recent weeks. Florida has become the center of a new wave of infections in the United States, and its vaccination rate is far lower than that of Connecticut and New York.
On Saturday, Florida reported nearly 24,000 new Covid-19 cases. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Said, marking the state’s record high.Another 93 people died and more than 13,000 were Be hospitalized.
In contrast, the state has only reported 1,250 new infections June 1.
A spokesperson for UF Health Shands Hospital told Insider that as of Saturday, the facility had admitted 204 Covid-19 patients. 44 people are receiving ICU treatment.
A representative confirmed that as of Friday, Baptist Health, which is composed of 11 hospitals, counted 810 Covid-19 patients, a 97% increase from two weeks ago.
Florida’s intensive care unit is overcrowded, and the last moments of relatives separated by masks and glass barriers have become a reality.
‘You just broke down emotionally’
Insider interviewed seven doctors, hospital leaders and local government officials to understand how they responded to the situation.
Steve Kessel, a South Florida cardiologist at Palm Beach Medical Center and Jupiter Medical Center, said some front-line doctors find themselves wasting precious time arguing with patients who still insist that it is right to give up the vaccine. He said this aroused the anger and even anger of medical service providers.
In a South Florida hospital, some Covid patients had to wait up to a day in the triage area because there were no immediately available ICU beds. A doctor in the area said that because they did not have the right to talk to the hospital, they requested anonymity. media.
Jimenez of UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville focuses on another growing emotion among some doctors and nurses: exhaustion.
“Humanized, you sometimes collapse,” Jimenez said. “You just broke down emotionally.”
“If you lose, you may die”
According to data from Florida, about half of adults (50.8%) in Florida have been fully vaccinated. Johns Hopkins UniversityThe Delta variant is preying on about half of the adults in the state.
David Wayne, director of the emergency department at Tampa General Hospital, said: “It is certainly frustrating to know that we have taken very good preventive measures at this point. We are lucky to have a vaccine.” “This may add some frustration. -It’s just not being fully accessed and utilized.”
Jimenez said he heard that some patients pleaded for vaccinations after they fell ill. “The saddest thing is obviously the people in the intensive care unit,” he said. “Obviously it’s too late.”
Paul Schwartz, a doctor in South Florida, discovered another thing: Some people continue to despise the severity of the disease.
A recent conversation with a friend of venture capitalists made him particularly confused. Schwartz said that investors are optimistic that “his chance of getting Covid is relatively small, and the chance of dying from Covid is very small.”
“My comment to him is:’This is an all-in,'” the doctor added. “If you lose that bet, you may die.”
A large number of patients are being backlogged
With the rapid increase in the number of Covid patients, it is not just the emergency medical system being taxed. The county administrator Barry Burton, who is responsible for the operation of the local government in Pinellas County, said that there are nearly 1 million residents on the west coast of the county. .
This situation “puts a burden on our healthcare system, our emergency room, our ambulance, and our fire rescue because it all operates as a system,” he told Insider.
The county’s ambulance system used to be able to transfer patients to the hospital in about 15 minutes.
But Burton said the reserve force at the county hospital forced patients to sit in an ambulance and wait for an hour or more, making these emergency rooms unusable. New patients must wait longer at home to be picked up, or the fire department must intervene to transfer.
At the same time, the hospital is facing a national There is a shortage of nurses.
Kevin Taylor, director of emergency rooms at Baptist Health’s two Bethesda hospitals in Boynton Beach, said staff nurses are voluntarily increasing their shifts to make up for the lack of reinforcements.
“You do worry about stress, and you feel tired,” he said.
Overwhelmed hospitals have begun to move patients to other places
Jimenez of UF Health Shands Hospital told Insider that his hospital has rescheduled some elective surgeries to next week to ensure that enough ICU beds are available.
He said that Putnam Community Medical Center, a 99-bed medical institution in Palatka, had to transfer some patients to the nearby North Florida Regional Medical Center with 523 beds to deal with the overloaded patients last week.
Both hospitals are located in Alachua County in northern Florida.Like the rest of the state, Alachua County has experienced Cases have risen sharply From early summer. Although its vaccination rate has not completely stagnated, it has risen from 56% in mid-June to 61% in early August.
A spokesperson for HCA North Florida, which treats both hospitals as affiliated hospitals, told Insider in an email that the Putnam Community Medical Center’s oxygen capacity tool warned last week that it was approaching “within a limited time.” Upper limit.
The spokesperson said the hospital has implemented “proactive measures”-including moving patients to larger facilities-to reduce the pressure on the oxygen system.
The more difficult period may be yet to come
Although the current situation looks ominous, some Florida doctors worry that it may be upgraded, especially if the school reopens next week.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (Ron DeSantis) is a Republican who had previously Issue administrative orders It is forbidden to wear masks in class.But on Saturday, Mike Burke, the head of the Palm Beach County Public Schools, told his family in a letter that he need Nonetheless, unless the parents specifically choose to let their children quit.
Facial coverings may not be enough to prevent the coronavirus mutations that may hinder vaccine development in the future-said Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warn last month. This situation may push the already strained hospital to the edge.
Kessel said that in the end, the Floridians themselves will be the arbiter of what happens next.
He laments that misinformation about vaccines is part of the reason for subverting public health in the state, comparing dangerous urban legends to “superstitions.”
“If we still believe in superstition,” he said, “we will still use leeches and witch doctors to heal people.”
