As COVID-19 cases continue to increase throughout the bay, some of the largest peaks are in southern Santa Clara County.
Gilroy’s only hospital is struggling to keep up with demand, and on Monday community leaders sounded the alarm and tried to explain the tip – while urging people to redouble efforts to prevent the spread.
At Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy, the ICU was full and, on average, they had to transfer one or two patients a day to other hospitals.
“We have started canceling elective surgeries, so the nurses in our surgery department are now deployed to help in the ICU, the emergency department and the doctors,” said Gloria dela Merced.
But it is not enough, with a full ICU, transfers to other hospitals have become a daily event – sometimes even requiring a move to another county. While some subacute patients are now being transferred here to De Paul Health Center in Morgan Hill.
“It’s really helpful to discharge those patients who are stable enough to be discharged, but not to go home,” Merced said.
Gilroy and Morgan Hill have more cases than almost anywhere in the county, which is why the beds fill up so quickly. But why?
“We know that there are several factors at play in the large number of cases, one is the density of the number of people in the population living together in a small space, and the other is theirs and the percentage of the population doing essential work,” he said. said Maribel Martinez, responsible for public information of Santa Clara County.
And while only a quarter of the entire population of the country is Latino, they represent almost 52% of all cases of covid in the county.
That’s why on Monday, community health leaders sounded the alarm in Spanish and English, urging people in the region to stay home on New Year’s Eve and wear masks.