Tarrant County has only 18 open ICU beds. One tragedy could close them, official says
Tarrant County is one car crash, building fire or other large-scale tragedy from depleting its ICU beds, according to Vinny Taneja, the county public health director.
He reported on Tuesday that 18 ICU beds remain open in Tarrant County out of about 550 beds. In the 19 county region, 79 ICU beds remain, Taneja said.
Not all occupied beds are taken up by COVID-19 patients, but the pandemic is stretching hospital resources thin.
About 20% of people in Tarrant County hospitals are there because they’re sick with COVID-19, he said. The positivity rate in the county is 17%, meaning about one in six people tested for the virus receive a positive test.
The virus is rapidly moving through the area. It took six days for Tarrant County to add 10,000 COVID-19 cases recently, but it took 107 to reach the first 10,000, when people were following stay at home protocols, distancing and wearing masks, Taneja said.
“We thought July was rough … look at what’s happening now,” Taneja said.
Barclay Berdan, the chief executive officer of Texas Health Resources, said he’s worried with the direction cases are going.
“We are at the highest level of COVID-19 positive patients in our hospitals than we have been during the entire pandemic,” Berdan told the Star-Telegram on Monday afternoon.
At that time, 645 patients were being treated for the coronavirus at 24 Texas Health Resources hospitals.
“We’re at the point where we’re putting our surge plans in place,” Berdan said, meaning in part that the hospital system is taking non-urgent surgeries on a case-by-case basis. “What we don’t want to have happen is have some of those patients end up occupying beds that we may need for COVID patients.”
Berdan said his hospitals can convert some areas into ICU beds if needed.
“The most common type of space would be a recovery room,” he said. “Those are spaces that have all the equipment you need for an ICU and the people who work in recovery rooms are just as well trained as someone who works in an ICU. … The downside of that is it then begins to limit the number of surgeries you can do.”
The system can handle a surge by transferring patients within its 24 hospitals, Berdan said. In some scenarios, the transfer could be arranged between hospitals in different systems.
Berdan said another strain on hospitals is having enough nurses, respiratory therapists and lab techs.
“The state has been able to send us ... well over 100 people in those types of professions,” he said, adding that the hospital has also been hiring new staff almost weekly.
The pandemic, he said, is taking a toll on caregivers.
“Our limitation is probably more with staff than it is with beds,” he said. “We’re really concentrating on bringing more staff in, but you also have to remember that virtually everybody in the country is doing the same thing. So there’s a kind of a limited supply. ... My employees have been at this for nine months.”
In an impassioned op-ed written for the Star-Telegram just before Thanksgiving, Berdan pleaded with the community to stay home, social distance and wear masks — not only for individual health, but to also support caregivers across the county.
“If you’re tired of telling people to wash their hands, tell them about our COVID-19 caregivers who make personal sacrifices every day so they can care for our community,” he wrote. “The many nurses who arrive home exhausted after a long shift, strip off their scrubs in the garage before going inside, and then shower before even hugging their children and partners to keep them safe.”
Tarrant County hospital capacity
Hospital capacity by available beds and ventilators for Tarrant County. Data provided by Tarrant County Public Health.
This story was originally published December 8, 2020 at 12:24 PM.
