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With 'rocky weeks' ahead, Houston hospitals brace for more COVID-19 patients - Houston Chronicle

With 'rocky weeks' ahead, Houston hospitals brace for more COVID-19 patients - Houston Chronicle

With 'rocky weeks' ahead, Houston hospitals brace for more COVID-19 patients - Houston Chronicle
Jul 04, 2020 2 mins, 4 secs

Aided by an oxygen mask strapped to her face — the woman had declined a ventilator — staff at Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Texas Medical Center aimed to make her more comfortable in her last days.

While physicians and nurses at Memorial Hermann say they’re still equipped to handle the surge in cases, ICU beds at the hospital are nearly full, and all Texas Medical Center institutions are operating at a “Phase 2” contingency plan to make use of additional beds in overflow areas.

With the plan in place, the total number of ICU beds being used across the medical center is 1,367, including 512 for COVID-19.

Another 840 ICU beds are available under surge plans, according to medical center data, and more capacity can be created by converting beds.

Models predict the disease will peak in mid-to-late July, almost two months after cases began to surge with the reopening of the Texas economy and a busy Memorial Day weekend.

The influx forced Memorial Hermann to overflow patients to the medical ICU on the other half of the floor, taking up roughly three-fourths of the 16 beds there on Thursday.

Bela Patel, executive medical director of critical care medicine at Memorial Hermann.

On Friday, the hospital wasn’t quite at its capacity of 38 ICU beds and 29 floor beds for COVID-19, according to hospital data.

“I don’t think we feel the hit, with how many cases they’re reporting,” he said after leaving a patient’s pressure-sealed room, which keeps the COVID-tinged air contained inside.

That doesn’t diminish the seriousness of the virus, which is approaching a dangerous level in Houston, hospital officials said.

But they repeatedly stated that they felt they had enough space to accommodate the growing number of cases at Memorial Hermann.

Caring for any COVID-19 patient is still risky for medical professionals, but Doshi and his colleagues on the eighth floor have their new procedures down to a science.

“I’ve never, ever thought about myself when I take care of patients,” Doshi said.

With an intake of COVID-19 patients that has become more and more regular, Doshi said he felt lucky on Thursday when the emergency room had no one waiting for a spot in the ICU.

Staff is always looking for openings to move their patients — from the ER to the ICU, from the general floor to an ICU overflow, or from the ICU to the general floor.

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