Oxygen supply issues forced five Los Angeles-area hospitals to declare an 'internal disaster'

Authored by edition.cnn.com and submitted by JHopeHoe

(CNN) Oxygen supply issues led at least five Los Angeles County hospitals to declare an "internal disaster" Sunday, which included turning patients away.

There are multiple issues involving oxygen delivery to patients, but generally the problem is not an absolute shortage of oxygen, according to Dr. Christina Ghaly, Los Angeles County Health Services director.

Instead, at some area hospitals, aging infrastructure that pumps oxygen to patient rooms is unable to keep up with the high number of patients needing oxygen.

"They're not able to maintain the pressure in the pipe to maintain oxygen delivery at that high level of pressure that's required to be delivered through the high-flow oxygen delivery vehicles," Ghaly said. "Because of that high flow through the pipes, sometimes it's freezing in the pipes, and obviously if it freezes then you can't have good flow of oxygen."

The oxygen issues come as Los Angeles County sees a near-overwhelming surge of Covid-19 patients taking nearly every hospital to capacity. Nearly 7,000 patients are currently hospitalized, with about 20% of those in intensive care units.

kantorr on December 30th, 2020 at 17:51 UTC »

There are other internal disasters besides 02 supply issues. At Los Alamitos they called an internal disaster because they literally couldn't handle 911 calls. They've been over capacity for more than a week. There were 6 or 7 ambulances that couldn't drop off patients last week, and today there were 5 waiting to leave because the hospital can't admit their patients. They're using the parking garage as additional ER and Covid space, with the normal ER being ICU now.

The hospital I'm at today (and most hospitals are like this) is doing testing in the parking garage. The line of cars goes through the entire garage.

reddicyoulous on December 30th, 2020 at 16:16 UTC »

At Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in Los Angeles, for example, patients are being treated in tents outside the hospital, in a conference room and in the chapel. Gurneys are taken into the gift shop. Rationing care could be next, hospital CEO Dr. Elaine Batchlor said Monday.

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"If you don't have respirators, you don't have nurses to care for patients, you don't have ICU beds, we will have to have these terrible discussions with families, which is why people need to stay home, and when they go out, they need to wear a mask," Reiner said.

Think about this when thinking about NYE

-M-o-X- on December 30th, 2020 at 16:13 UTC »

I have a relative that works hazardous transport, he and all of his peers have been clocking OT like mad because their hospitals usually needed more oxygen about every four weeks, they now are needing more oxygen every three days. Thats in the midwest, cant imagine the megacities on the coasts.