The L.A. Surge Hospital treated a small number of coronavirus patients during the 39 days it was open. But doctors say it saved 'many, many lives,' while restoring their faith in medicine.
The wave started in early March. The novel coronavirus was spreading across Los Angeles County, and local hospitals were unprepared.
Dr. Jamie Taylor stands in a room that was converted into an area for COVID patients at Los Angeles Surge Hospital in Los Angeles. Walking empty corridors, she imagined St. Vincent’s final week as Verity shut it down: patients transferred to other facilities, staff emptying rooms and filling boxes with supplies.Now those boxes had to be unpacked and the equipment inventoried, a triage of what could and couldn’t be used. There was no better place for them to begin, Annamalai said, than “rolling up their sleeves and grabbing a mop.
“There was not enough time to see the forest for the trees,” Taylor said, “because we were in the thick of it, chipping away at six tasks at a time.” Ryan Barnette, 37, signed on early. An ICU doctor at County-USC Medical Center, he was drawn not just by the urgency of the pandemic, but also by the challenge of opening a closed facility and mobilizing a staff to care for patients who might otherwise die.Working at both hospitals, he put in 70 hours some weeks. Sleep became a luxury for the doctor who liked to think of himself as a guy not afraid of “running into a burning building.
Taylor estimates that 90% of their patients were Latino and that diabetes was the most common preexisting condition. Only three of LASH’s patients had private insurance, according to the L.A. County Department of Public Health. Twenty-eight were uninsured, and 33 were covered by either Medi-Cal or Medicare, which typically reimburse at rates lower than private plans.“That was the goal, right? Create an environment that could save lives.
Operating costs for the surge hospital through May 31, according to the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, were $21.5 million which covered medical treatments and physician salaries, as well as food services and the lease on the property.Kaiser Permanente and Dignity Health received $500,000 apiece for the salaries of their employees who were reassigned to LASH.
The decision by state officials came abruptly. She was scheduled to work a night shift on May 22 when she got a text at home. EMTs were transferring the last patient to Good Samaritan Hospital.
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