Southern California ICU capacity dips to 10.9%; where do Coachella Valley hospitals stand?

On Sunday night the entire region of Southern California entered into the state's stay-at-home order in response to decreasing ICU capacity numbers. On Friday, Southern California dipped below the state's threshold of 15%. As of Monday morning, ICU capacity for the region was at 10.9%.

"We had 2 days of over 2,000 cases confirmed, which would both be records so that’s something that is obviously alarming because we never reached those numbers before," said Jose Arballo, spokesperson for Riverside County's Department of Public Health.

The case count in Riverside County has steadily gone up.

"Our case count for ICU actually as of today will be 157 patients and hospitalizations will top 700," said Arballo.

As hospitals across the region experience surging numbers, one of the biggest issues has become the ability to staff them.

"Our biggest challenge in this wave is going to be staffing issues and so if we look at how many beds we can currently staff we are at about 88% of our capacity in terms of actual staffed beds," said Eisenhower Health Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Alan Williamson.

As of Monday afternoon Eisenhower Health's ICU had about 22 patients out of a total of 34 beds.

"Eight of those are COVID patients and we right now are only able to staff about 25 or 26 beds in the ICU. That’s why I’m saying we’re getting up to 85% or above in terms of actual occupancy, in the ICU in terms of beds we can staff," said Dr. Williamson.

Dr. Williamson said they are expecting to see more patients trickle in from the Thanksgiving holiday, which could exacerbate the issue.

A spokesperson for Desert Care Network told News Channel 3 that as of Monday afternoon there were a total of 9 ICU beds available at John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital. Desert Regional Medical Center only had 2 remaining ICU beds, but they were in the process of adding 10 more.

Eisenhower Health has put in a request for staffing help with the county. In July a Federal Medical Team was deployed to Eisenhower to help, but this time it may not be that easy.

"The challenge this time, yes we are out looking for all the staff resources we possibly can, but so is everyone else," said Dr. Williamson.

The nation continues to grapple with increased case rates and the need for travel nurses and outside help.

"Fortunately we’ve been able to work with the Cal State San Bernardino nursing school. [We] were able to take quite a number of their graduates and we’re putting them through a very intensive orientation period to really get them up to speed quickly on managing patients in the hospital to help with the overall pool of nurses we have. They wouldn’t necessarily be taking care of COVID patients," said Dr. Williamson.

A backup plan is in place in the event that local hospitals tap into their surge plans.

"So we’ve looked at distributing patients so if one hospital was experiencing a surge and we had to we could possibly redistribute patients to other hospitals and the federal medical station is one of our backup plans," said Shane Reichardt, Public Information Specialist with Riverside County's Emergency Services Department.

There are 2 federal medical stations in the county that will serve as a back-ups if hospitals are in need. One of them is at the Indio Fairgrounds.

"If we truly reach our capacity, and this is why county officials and state officials are doing things, that I know that are not terribly popular in terms of trying to really clamp down on the exposure risk. When we reach to capacity I don’t think there are going to be many traditional options. We’re not just going to be able to transfer a patient elsewhere. All of the hospitals in the region are in the same situation," said Dr. Williamson.

Health officials are waiting to see if the wave becomes worse from the Thanksgiving holiday.