Dr. McCafferty discusses the state of Desert Regional & JFK Memorial Hospital
Dr. Randall McCafferty, medical director of emergency operations for the Desert Care network joined Peter Daut during our special 6:30 p.m. newscast on Fox and CBS.
Dr. McCafferty shared the latest update on how things are going at both Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs and JFK Memorial Hospital in Indio. He says the hospitals are seeing its highest number of patients in the past four months.
"Well certainly over the last several weeks at both hospitals and across the county, we are seeing an uptick in the number of COVID cases, as of this morning Desert Regional Medical Center has 77 patients, and JFK has 30, and an additional 25 between the 2 that are still under investigation," McCafferty said.
Peter spoke to Eisenhower Health's Chief Medical Officer about the status of that hospital and a viral post from another doctor who described the situation as a "hell hole."
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McCafferty says despite the high numbers, he feels the hospitals are prepared for a continued rise.
"Right now the predictions are that over the next several weeks, up into early- to mid-August, we are anticipating cases across the county to approach 750, where we are roughly around 500 right now, McCafferty said. "So, we are absolutely prepared and expecting there to be a continued rise, that we are continuing to work diligently in the desert care network to address the needs of those patients as well as the other healthcare needs of the community."
McCafferty details some of the trends they've been seeing at the hospital.
Well specifically there is an uptick, certainly. There is an increase in the positivity rate that we are seeing overall. What that means is a little uncertain, that we do know there is an increase in patient census across the county. We are seeing a slight increase in the mediate or decrease in the mediate age, and an increase in those that are slightly younger. Where previously it was almost exclusively elderly patients that were getting hospitalized, overall the median age has dropped slightly in the county and at our hospital,' McCafferty said.
McCafferty continued, "We are operating at the high level of our capacity that we might see in the winter months and during the high season. The added challenge of addressing it specifically to COVID patients, we've been preparing for about four months, so we are adequately addressing the current surge, the challenge really that we're facing is this is sustained. Typically during the winter months there are fluctuations that last days or weeks, and we addressed those fluctuations and then they go away. This is causing a lot of stress on our system and our health care workers."
McCafferty says the staff is doing as well as can be, but the surge is causing stress on the system and to the workers.
"That said, my perception is the individuals that come to work every day are proud of the efforts, they are providing to the community. If I may I'll give you a slight anecdote. I have a patient that is an employee of Desert Regional who I had to take out of work for an injury unrelated to COVID. I just saw him the other day. His attitude when I talked to him about returning to work, and I'll paraphrase, 'I really need to get back to work to help my colleagues in the support of this effort, because there's a lot of stress in our system.' And it's this kind of attitude I see much more prevalently across our system than being broken by the stress that's being created by this pandemic," McCafferty said.
On Wednesday, Cathedral City moved to place a reserve ambulance in service to handle local hospital backlogs related to COVID-19. The city says that the recent surge in Coronavirus cases has impacted hospital room wait times. McCafferty shared his experience with this backlog in patients.
"So throughout the healthcare system, there is a natural flow to patients, and when we are at a high capacity, there are gonna be certain bottlenecks in the system," McCafferty said. "I can't speak directly towards ambulances, I do know that ICUs are operating at a high capacity and we would like to move those patients to different levels of care throughout the facility and when we're prepared to discharge patients, there's been a delay in discharging which is causing another bottleneck, all these nuances to healthcare, we are addressing confidently and proactively by looking at the numbers day in and day out to ensure we can address all those needs for the whole community."
McCafferty says they are seeing a variety of different patients coming in through ambulance, not just due to COVID-19.
McCafferty was then asked about people who believe the pandemic is overblown or that it's just another version of the flu.
"This is causing a profound challenge to our healthcare systems. This is not unprecedented that we have challenges periodically, It's the sustainment of this COVID pandemic that has created additional stress. The love and support that is being provided by our community in general with signs, flybys, to support our healthcare community is fantastic," McCafferty said. "I would urge in addition to these gestures that people wash their hands, social distance, if you have symptoms, don't go to work. Stay at home. Do not go and visit a friend if you have symptoms. We can all work on this together in order to mitigate this pandemic and maintain the health and safety of the entire community."
McCafferty wouldn't say whether he believes whether we are heading towards another pandemic, but did say health leaders are ready to take steps to control the disease.
"I believe, that we will have to constantly take steps as we get new data, in the early phases of this disease, we had to take unprecedented steps for which disease process we didn't really know or understand, at this point in time, we are much more prepared, we know much more about the disease, and the leaders of our healthcare community and of our country will probably take the right steps in order to make sure we can help control this disease," McCafferty said.
McCafferty finished the interview by thanking the community for its continued support and asked everyone to take the proper steps to prevent the spread of the virus.
"Again I'd like to reiterate the support from the community for us is welcome, it helps us show up to work and work hard in delivering your healthcare across the Coachella Valley, again I insist that you please social distance, wash your hands, if you are symptomatic stay away from others, and quarantine yourself. These efforts will help us get through this pandemic," McCafferty said.
