Cathedral City puts reserve ambulance in service for rising COVID-19 cases
On Wednesday night Cathedral City's city council moved to place a reserve ambulance in service to handle local hospital backlogs related to COVID-19. The city posted to its Facebook page that the recent surge in Coronavirus cases has impacted hospital room wait times.
"We will have 3 ambulances in the city instead of our typical 2 ambulances in the city," Cathedral City Communications and Events Manager, Chris Parman said.
The city has 2 ambulances on reserve at any given time.
"What we’re finding is that with the increase in the COVID patients going to the hospital, the ER’s are backlogged," Parman said.
Parman said at the interim fire chief's request, the city council approved use of the third ambulance immediately to be able to assist first responders in maintaining adequate care and response times to medical calls.
"It’s a duty of an ambulance to check the person into the hospital to make sure they’re under their care before they can leave the ER and return to Cathedral City to provide additional services. What we’re finding is because of the surge, we’re finding that the waiting times to admit those patients in the ambulance to the ER of the hospitals are taking longer than normal," Parman said.
If first responders are having to wait at hospitals, that could increase response times for other potential callers.
Both Desert Regional Medial Center and Eisenhower Health are seeing an increase of patients in their Intensive Care Units.
"I do know that our ICUs are moving at a high capacity and we’d like to move those patients to different levels of care throughout the facility," Desert Regional Medical Center Medical Director of Emergency Operations, Dr. Randall McCafferty said.
Eisenhower Health said despite having the shortest unloading time in the county for a hospital its size, wait times to admit patients have increased. They released this statement, with reasons for the delays:
Waiting for COVID-19 test results so that COVID-negative patients are not exposed to potential COVID-positive. Increased volume of admitted patients for this time of year throughout the hospital. Use of PPE and cleaning requirements increases turnover time of beds throughout the hospital. Any ancillary studies, such as imaging, take longer due to cleaning requirements and use of protective equipment. Staffing issues throughout the hospital due to quarantining of staff, sick calls and seasonal staffing. Discharge planning takes longer, especially with COVID-positive patients.
Meanwhile the city said there is no timeline for how long this third ambulance will be in use, and that it all depends on demand.
The city's approval also meant taking on an extra expenditure. Officials are hoping to get reimbursement through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state because it is COVID-related.
