Speaker 1: (00:00)
Yesterday San Diego reached a record high in COVID cases with more than 8,000 cases. Being reported though, hospitalizations are lower than last year. At the same time, local emergency rooms are being stretched to their limits here. To talk more about what local hospitals and emergency rooms are seeing in recent days is San Diego union Tribu health reporter Paul Sissen. Paul, welcome.
Speaker 2: (00:22)
Thanks for having me in your
Speaker 1: (00:24)
Latest article, you write about how hospitals sometimes employ a process called diversion. Can you explain what that is? And, uh, what it's designed to do
Speaker 2: (00:33)
Diversion is just simply this idea that your emergency department make it so full, that you, uh, struggle to take additional ambulance, uh, runs that might be coming to you. You know, those folks generally need to be put to the front of the line. They generally have pretty urgent problems that need urgent attention. And so diversion simply allows a hospital to, to raise its collective hand and say, Hey, we need a little break. Uh, we need to send some of these, uh, ambulances that might be coming into us from other areas to other hospitals. Uh, they generally continue taking ambulances that are in their kind of main service area. Uh, but they stop bringing in, uh, stuff from further away. And so what happened, uh, yesterday is that so many hospitals, uh, I think 16 of the 22 non civilian hospitals in San Diego county were on diversion.
Speaker 2: (01:31)
Uh, and the saying in, in healthcare is that if everybody's on diversion, nobody's on diversion. In other words, there's really, you're diverting ambulances, but you're not really diverting them to anywhere that can take them because pretty much everybody is, is full up. Uh, so, uh, what the county EMS authority did yesterday was said, okay, uh, until 8:00 AM this morning, uh, overnight, nobody's going on diversion anymore. You're going to have to take all of the ambulance runs that show up at your, uh, ambulance bay and you're going to have to handle them as best you can. Uh, and so it's a lot longer, uh, for paramedics to offload their patients, uh, than it might, if they were able to find another alternate facility to go
Speaker 1: (02:12)
To what capacity are local hospitals currently seeing
Speaker 2: (02:16)
They, they are, uh, quite full, you know, they, they continue and they have continued to see through this year higher than normal level of, uh, demand for non COVID care. Uh, if you talk to people, uh, on the units, they, they all feel, it seems like that, uh, a lot of people who delayed care last year are now coming in with more severe illness and they might have otherwise had. And then, you know, this high level of COVID cases that we're seeing, uh, as everybody is going out and getting tested and testing positive, uh, you know, they're, they're just seeing a, a lot of those folks, a lot of them with more minor illness, but, but some of them, uh, you know, pretty severely sick, uh, with COVID as well. I was on an ER last night and we saw a couple folks come in who, uh, had severe enough COVID that they needed, uh, supplementary oxygen and eventually were headed for the ICU.
Speaker 1: (03:07)
As I mentioned, San Diego reached a record high in new coronavirus infections yesterday. What jumps out to you with the latest numbers?
Speaker 2: (03:15)
They're not terribly surprising. We know that we had have a lot of people going out and getting tested right now. We have, uh, record numbers of people waiting in, in long, long, long lines, uh, to get tested. Uh, I know that yesterday, for example, uh, at the, one of the Kaiser facilities on LA Mesa, uh, there was, you know, so much demand that it was backing up traffic and the police had to, to warn people to take alternate routes. Uh, so, you know, you're testing a lot of people. So of course, you're going to find more positive cases than you might have. Otherwise, if fewer people were coming in for testing, it's, it's hard to, to really suss out exactly what, what is all driving the, uh, the demand for testing. But yeah, it doesn't really surprise me that we would have a lot more cases if we're, if we have a lot more, uh, tests, the question is, uh, you know, what, where the rubber hits the road is really in the hospitals and, and whether or not they end up, uh, able to handle the demand. You
Speaker 1: (04:05)
Touched on this earlier, but, uh, is the current situation which you refer as dire, delaying people from receiving necessary medical care.
Speaker 2: (04:13)
You know, it's a little unclear, it's hard to, uh, to have a CLO, a global view of this. Uh, what kind of really, uh, opened my eyes wide was just this notion that we have so many medical personnel that are calling in sick, uh, because they have COVID, uh, you know, and that really, uh, talking to some of the, the local, uh, facilities here in town, it seems like it's a quite significant situation where, you know, they're canceling, uh, elective procedure. And it seems like it's putting a lot of pressure, uh, on their ability to have much throughput in the emergency rooms. Uh, you know, as things kind of get backed up that I think feels a little more dire because if you don't have people to, uh, to deliver the care, then, then you're kind of stuck. What
Speaker 1: (04:58)
Are our hospitals and medical co officials telling patients who are seeking medical care, particularly those who are showing coronavirus symptoms.
Speaker 2: (05:08)
I spoke to a ER director at Brady last night, um, 80 children's hospital here in San Diego. And, uh, you know, they are asking the public to be a little careful about what they come into the ER for right now. You know, they say, you know, certainly if you have a child or, or you yourself, if you are truly very concerned that something is wrong and, and it needs to be dealt with urgently, they're saying, you know, by all means, please come in. We, we believe you, when you say you feel, uh, very, very ill. Uh, but what they're saying is, you know, if you, if you have pretty minor or your child has pretty minor symptoms, a minor cough, a some running nose, no signs of trouble breathing, that kind of thing. Uh, you know, please talk to your pediatrician, talk to your doctor, call your nursing line, get their advice before you come into the ER, you know, try to work up the chain. Uh, they know it's very busy out there and a lot of folks are, are struggling to get through. And some of that just tends to default over to the emergency department when people can't get through to the primary care resources. Uh, but all that really does it just kind of continues to back things up and the ER, waiting rooms. Uh, so, you know, it's, it's kind of hard to find a, uh, quick way through at this point.
Speaker 1: (06:19)
I've been speaking with Paul Sissen healthcare reporter for the San Diego union Tribune. Paul, thank you. Thank you so much.
