As COVID-19 brutalizes Arizona, a look inside Tucson Medical Center provides a snapshot of what hospitals in the state are experiencing.
TUCSON, Ariz. – As one of the city's largest hospitals battles to save its largest-ever number of critically ill patients, its COVID-19 intensive care unit is eerily quiet.
The hallways, patient rooms and the COVID-19 operations center at Tucson Medical Center provide an inside look at what hospitals struggle with around the state: not enough ICU beds, a higher-than-usual number of sick employees, intense staffing challenges and frustrating delays in COVID-19 testing.US coronavirus map: Tracking the outbreakThe silence masks a life-and-death struggle, as well as tension and desperation.
"We never expected that we would be at these kind of numbers in July," Rich said."We have expanded our ICU by more than 50%. ... I think we're all adding as many beds as we can possibly push the system to add." Coomler said,"We've never had this many people out for the length of time that they need to be out of work because of an illness."
"It takes a team of about six or seven people, including respiratory therapists, to safely roll the patient onto their stomach. We have a lot of tubes and lines that we work really hard not to dislodge," clinical nurse specialist Angie Muzzy said."They are at very high risk for injury to their eye, to their skin. … So we have to be very diligent about preventing injury to them.
The ICU unit, behind doors with red signs on them that say"STOP," is for the sickest of COVID-19 patients. COVID-19 more like TB than the fluThe isolation needed for a COVID-19 patient is similar to treating a patient for tuberculosis, Coomler said. There's an entire suit and head gear, designed for treating Ebola patients, that's used to intubate patients with confirmed and suspected COVID-19, said Dang Huynh, assistant medical director of the TMC emergency department.
"We have people with a variety of different illnesses. Maybe they already have renal failure, and the virus just overwhelms them and they have no wiggle room to bounce back," she said. What 'surge' mode looks likeTucson Medical Center has been in what's known as"surge" mode since the first week of June, using beds and staff above normal capacity.
The hospital had 33 negative pressure rooms before the pandemic and upgraded rooms to add 100, said Richard Parker, director of facilities and construction at TMC. The hospital makes some exceptions to the no-visitor rule, but that's difficult in the ICU, Rich said. It is a 24/7 statewide phone line for hospitals and other providers to call when they have a COVID-19 patient who needs a level of care they can't provide. An electronic system locates available beds and appropriate care, evenly distributing the patients, so no one system or hospital is overwhelmed by patients.
"What was disappointing was after we knew we were getting into a surge situation, the governor was still saying we were OK. ... We knew we were not. We knew we were preparing for some pretty tough stuff to come," she said."That was the biggest disappointment." Arizona coronavirus: These teachers shared a classroom for summer school. All 3 contracted COVID-19. 1 died."We are so grateful to have a document that offers guidance that we have not had to employ," Coomler said."At this point, we continue to add resources instead of figuring out how to ration them."
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