Samer Fahmy, the chief medical officer at Boca Raton Regional Hospital, said: “We have had patients in their 20s gasping for air and getting intubated.
“We’re taking care of patients who, if they had made the right choice and gotten the vaccine, would not be in the hospital,†he said.Oetterer, one of the nurses in Jacksonville, said nearly all the patients she has seen in recent days were not vaccinated.“Every day I come to work and I’m tired and I’m ready for people to be vaccinated,†Oetterer said.Alix Zacharski, a nurse manager for the medical intensive care unit at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, recalled how painful it was to lose a 54-year-old patient Friday who expressed regret over not having gotten vaccinated in time.I thought I could wait longer,’†Zacharski said the patient told her.
Watson said Tallahassee Memorial is pulling back on some elective operations and certain procedures that require overnight stays so it can devote more time to treating people with Covid.
Paul Carl Vélez, the president and chief executive of Borinquen Medical Centers, which runs community health centers in Miami-Dade County, said staff members at Borinquen centers have encountered people across age groups and income levels who do not want to get vaccinated.Lawrence Johnson, one of more than 220 Covid patients at UF Health Jacksonville on Monday, said that he does not drink or smoke and that he tries to keep healthy