stretchers while staff look for open beds resulting in huge problems, quote ambulances lined the e.r. bay in what hospital spokesperson john atkinson called a patient traffic jam that keeps out of town ambulances sidelined and unable to respond to other emergencies in their own communities. alabama reported a net negative number of available staffed icu beds yesterday. negative. which means they have no room, and there are patients waiting to get into the beds that are already filled. there are more patients than beds right now. and here is the thing that i find most unsettling about this, and this involves some very very very easy math. the situation that alabama is in right now is happening with the state having about 2,700 patients in the hospital. that is the level of hospitalization in alabama that has led to this big crisis. 2,700. today, the university of alabama at birmingham predicted that the