Coronavirus puts patients in ICUs in Stanislaus County. What’s the latest count?
From all appearances, the hospitals in Stanislaus County are treating a manageable number of patients stricken by coronavirus.
As of Monday, 29 county residents hospitalized at centers like Memorial Medical Center and the Kaiser Permanente hospital in Modesto have tested positive for the virus.
That number does not include suspected cases or coronavirus patients from San Joaquin and Merced counties who are sent to local hospitals, county Health Officer Julie Vaishampayan said during an online forum last week.
As of Monday, hospital intensive care units in Stanislaus County were treating 12 patients seriously stricken by coronavirus and four patients suspected of COVID-19 illness, according to the California Department of Public Health. The ICU count was down from 19 confirmed or suspected cases a few days ago.
People who work at local hospitals told the Modesto Bee last week that plans are in the works to possibly receive patients from the Bay Area. But none of the hospitals confirmed that.
“We are not aware of this happening,” Doctors Medical Center said in a statement when asked about possible patient transfers from the Bay Area.
Vaishampayan said during a briefing with county officials Tuesday that local hospitals were not seeing a large number of patients. “The hospitals are sitting there waiting for the surge,” she said.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported recently that about 500 coronavirus patients were in hospitals in the six-county Bay Area, a manageable number for a region with larger hospitals than those in the Northern San Joaquin Valley.
Santa Clara County, one of the hot spots in the California outbreak, has a hospital dashboard showing 276 confirmed or suspected coronavirus patients in hospital beds there. More than 90 patients with COVID-19 illness were in intensive care units in Santa Clara. More than half of the county’s ICU beds were filled, leaving 91 ICU beds available.
About half of the 422 ventilators in Santa Clara County were in use, according to the dashboard.
The unprecedented health emergency creates anxiety among health care workers who face a shortage of personal protective gear, not only in Modesto but in coronavirus hot spots across California and the nation.
Modesto hospital staff worker: ‘We are not overwhelmed”
An employee at Kaiser’s Dale Road hospital, where nurses held a protest on the PPE shortage Tuesday, said managers are telling nurses that transfers to Modesto from the Bay Area could begin soon.
The employee said the patient load in Modesto is not anything like the chaos at over-stressed hospitals in New York City. She said residents in Stanislaus County should be assured they will have hospital care if they become seriously ill.
“We are not overwhelmed. In New York, the patients are stacked on top of each other. We are not,” the staff member said.
Still, local health care workers say they’re at risk of infection because of the shortage of N95 masks, face shields and other protective equipment.
The employee said Kaiser nurses are given five sanitizing wipes to use in a 16-hour shift and can’t use their own wipes or N95 masks brought from home. “We have to wear the masks they issue us,” the employee said.
Kaiser nurses who held a protest outside the Modesto hospital last week said they’re required to wear surgical masks when caring for COVID-19 patients. It’s allowed under a change in guidelines by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The nurses said they are permitted to wear the more protective N95 masks only during high-risk procedures for coronavirus patients, such as inserting a breathing tube.
Without better infection prevention, employees worry they will catch the respiratory illness or bring the virus home to infect spouses or children.
Staff at Kaiser Modesto say other safety measures could be taken to conserve PPE. For example, nurses wearing proper equipment could handle more duties in patient rooms, such as drawing blood, so other employees don’t need to enter the room wearing PPE.
Kaiser says top priority is safety
In a statement, Kaiser said its top priority is the safety of patients and staff. “We are taking aggressive and proactive action to get ready for the projected increases in care needs of patients with COVID-19 in the near and long-term future at our Modesto medical center and all of our Northern California hospitals,” Kaiser said.
The Oakland-based health system has a comprehensive plan ensuring adequate bed space and supplies to safely care for patients and protect staff, including the use of non-traditional space in and around its medical centers, the statement said.
Vaishampayan said during an online forum last week that she’s working with hospitals to complete a surge plan but she’s not ready to communicate the plan with the public. The details of the plan are not known, yet.
Kaiser employs extensive security measures to route and screen patients arriving at its Dale Road center, which combines specialty clinics with a 152-bed hospital.
At Memorial Medical Center, at Briggsmore Avenue and Coffee Road, employees have their temperatures taken before entering the building. Nurses working on regular acute floors are issued one mask for their shift, a staff member said.
“There is a nurse who is taking care of a patient (with tuberculosis) and has to use one mask for the day,” the staff member said. “I know we have to conserve, but with those patients you can’t use dirty PPE.”
Patients with coronavirus symptoms and those that tested positive are in a special unit behind closed doors at Memorial, with rows of carts in the hall. Nurses going in and out are covered head to toe with protective gear, the staff member said.
Coronavirus patients are known to require extensive care and a longer stay in hospitals.
Health care workers have called for stronger efforts to obtain protective equipment before a surge of patients more seriously impacts hospitals in Stanislaus County.
Contractors and other businesses can donate masks and protective clothing to Memorial, if the items are new and in original packaging. Donors can visit Sutter’s donation webpage or call Memorial at 209-526-4500 for additional information.
This story was originally published April 7, 2020 at 5:07 PM.
