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Los Angeles County paramedics examine a potential COVID-19 patient sitting on the sidewalk before transporting him to a hospital in Hawthorne, Calif., on Dec. 29, 2020.
In Los Angeles, ambulances are waiting for hours up to eight, in some cases to admit new patients at overwhelmed hospitals. The number of coronavirus patients in ICUs has more than quadrupled since the beginning of November.
And with the holidays just behind us, public health officials warn that the situation could get worse for emergency services. A lot of what s happening right now, even though people are talking about it, people are reporting about it, people aren t really seeing it. And the reality is, things are worse than people think, says Dr. Nichole Bosson, assistant medical director at the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency. And I say that because I see how people are still congregating in groups and making decisions to have family gatherings o
2021-01-06 10:05:38 GMT2021-01-06 18:05:38(Beijing Time) Xinhua English
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) As local hospitals are overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients, the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Agency has issued directives, saying ambulances should not transport patients to hospital if they have virtually no chance of surviving, CBS news channel reported Tuesday.
Patients likely with such treatment include those whose heartbeat and breathing have stopped and who couldn t be resuscitated by paramedics, said a memo signed by Marianne Gausche-Hill, the agency s medical director, and issued on Monday.
Due to the severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on EMS and 911 Receiving Hospitals, adult patients in blunt traumatic and nontraumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arrest shall not be transported if return of spontaneous circulation is not achieved in the field, read the memo posted online.
2021-01-06 16:20:58 GMT2021-01-07 00:20:58(Beijing Time) Sina English
AFP
County of Los Angeles paramedics load a potential COVID-19 patient in the ambulance before transporting him to a hospital in Hawthorne, California as a family walks by on December 29, 2020.
Los Angeles health officials have told first responders to stop bringing adult patients who cannot be resuscitated to hospitals, citing a shortage of beds and staff as the latest COVID-19 surge threatened to overwhelm health care systems in the second-largest US city.
The order issued late on Monday and became effective immediately, marking an escalation of measures being taken by state and local officials in the United States in the face of alarming rise in COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths.
Ambulances waiting at hospitals for six hours
In Los Angeles County, emergency rooms are so crowded that some ambulances have been forced to wait as long as six hours to offload patients, said Cathy Chidester, director of the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency. Some patients arriving by ambulance are asked to sit in the emergency department lobby so the ambulance can depart.
California is also desperately seeking more medical staff from overseas, perhaps from as far away as Australia, while opening field hospitals to care for non-ICU patients in places such as Costa Mesa, Porterville, Sacramento and Imperial; other facilities are on standby status in Riverside, Richmond, Fresno, San Diego and San Francisco.