There are several issues involving the delivery of oxygen to patients, but in general, the problem is not an absolute lack of oxygen, according to Dr. Christina Ghaly, director of health services in Los Angeles County.
In contrast, at some hospitals in the area, the aging infrastructure that pumps oxygen into patients’ rooms is unable to keep up with the large number of patients who need oxygen.
“They are not able to maintain the pressure in the pipe to maintain oxygen delivery at that high pressure level that needs to be delivered through high-oxygen delivery vehicles,” Ghaly said. “Because of the high flow through the pipes, sometimes it freezes in the pipes and obviously if it freezes, then you can’t have a good flow of oxygen.”
Oxygen problems arise as Los Angeles County sees an almost overwhelming wave of Covid-19 patients taking almost every hospital to capacity. Almost 7,000 patients are currently hospitalized, with about 20% of those in intensive care units.
And the lack of oxygen tanks
To solve the problem of oxygen supply, some hospitals move patients with Covid-19 to the lower floors of the medical center, which makes it easier to pump oxygen through the pipes without it freezing.
Another challenge, Ghaly said, is that several supply companies have a shortage of real oxygen tanks that patients can take home after being discharged from the hospital. Without canisters, patients who might otherwise go home – and free a bed and time for health workers – must remain in hospital.
At Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in Los Angeles, for example, patients are treated in tents outside the hospital, in a conference room, and in the chapel. The boxes are taken to the gift shop. The next rationing care could be, the hospital’s director general, Dr. Elaine Batchlor, said Monday.
“If we continue to see an increase in the number of patients with Covid, we may be forced to do something that, as health professionals, we all really hate to think about,” she said.
At Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California, nurses who usually care for one or two patients now care for three or four, infectious disease specialist Dr. Kimberly Shriner told CNN on Sunday.
“We have a limited number of fans, we have a limited number of beds for the ICU,” Shriner said, adding that a team that includes a bioethicist, a community member, a doctor, a nurse and an administrative leader will decide how to share those resources if it comes down to it.
These issues may combine for some difficult future decisions, said CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner.
“If you don’t have respirators, you don’t have nurses to take care of patients, you don’t have intensive care beds, we will have to have these terrible discussions with families, which is why people have to stay home and when they go out, they have to he’s wearing a mask, “Reiner said.
CNN’s Eric Levenson contributed to this report.