Riverside County ICU bed availability plunges to 0.0%; What that means moving forward

On Monday Riverside County's Intensive Care Unit bed availability percentage plunged to 0.0%.

The Riverside University Health System posted this chart to its website, while the entire Southern California region also reflected an alarming 2.7% ICU bed availability.

Monday afternoon, county public health officials provided a briefing to update the public.

"There are some hospitals that are in the 90’s and others that are a little more than 100 so that’s where you get your zero from. There are ICU beds available," said Riverside County Department of Public Health Spokesperson, Jose Arballo.

There are 17 acute care hospitals within the county. Many of these issues have already been ongoing. All continue to experience challenges when it comes to ICU beds and how to staff them.

County officials went onto say that the 0% report signifies that hospitals are having to tap into their surge plans.

"[It] doesn’t necessarily mean that there are no beds available. It means now that the hospitals have to implement their surge plans, do things like cancel elective surgeries to make sure that they’ve got capability and capacity for ICU patients. They may be transferring patients who are done with their time in the ICU, into other beds earlier," said Riverside County Emergency Management Department Public Information Specialist, Shane Reichardt.

As COVID-19 stretches into its 10th month, California has recently experienced some of the highest number of cases during the pandemic. County officials said Monday that the surge locally was worse than what we experienced in the summer when a Federal Medical Team arrived at Eisenhower Health to relieve exhausted staff members.

"To give you a comparison, we have 930 hospitalizations. At the peak during the summer, we had 550," said Arballo.

"This is the kind of thing that happens in a disaster. If this were a major earthquake or major catastrophe, it’s time where everybody’s getting creative to try and find ways to meet the needs," said Reichardt.

Eisenhower Health in Rancho Mirage reached a grim milestone over the weekend. The hospital also surpassed its previous high of COVID-19 patients during the summer.

On Monday, Eisenhower Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. Alan Williamson provided a statement:

We have additional areas designated in the hospital where we can manage ICU patients as part of our surge plan, and continue to work diligently on augmenting our staff to be sure we can care for the additional patients. We did receive some additional nurse resources from the state pool which will help.

A spokesperson for Desert Care Network told News Channel 3 that some hospital rooms are being converted to make way for ICU patients.

"We’re getting staffing requests and other requests pretty much from all the hospitals in Riverside County, including the Coachella Valley," said Reichardt.

The county is working as a liaison to submit local hospital requests to the state for staffing assistance.