“At the end of my shift, I just want to go into an office and laugh,” Mary Lynn Briggs, an emergency nurse in Bakersfield, California, told The Guardian.
The United States’ most populous state of California currently has the lowest incidence of new corona infections, according to American Institute of Public Health (CDC). But in the relatively pig-ridden region, which is made up of the Central Valley and the northernmost parts of the state, health care is being pushed to the limit.
Three times higher
In these areas, the incidence of covid-19 is three times higher than in the rest of the state, and corona patients flock to the hospitals; at the Community Regional Hospital in the city of Fresno, patients are queuing outside on stretchers because beds are not to be found.
view more
–
– I am exhausted and disappointed that it has gone so far, says doctor Kenny Banh to The Guardian.
The reason for the alarming numbers in the region is complex, but it is clear that a much smaller proportion have been vaccinated there than in metropolises such as the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles.
Banh says he regularly sees people connected to breathing machines and still refuses to believe they are coronary heart disease. The region also has a high incidence of violent demonstrations against bandage use and resistance to restrictions in the business community.
Chaos: People faint
The doctor further states that the vast majority of corona patients are unvaccinated – the rest have essentially underlying diseases.
– Never seen before
The situation is so precarious in the region that VET centers have been asked not to send out ambulances unless they meet certain requirements.
– We have never seen anything like this before, says Danielle Campagne, doctor and medical director of the company American Ambulance.
The United States is about to reopen, and the pressure on hospitals and AMK personnel has increased as the restrictions are lifted.
TREATMENT: From another room in the emergency room. Photo: Alex Horvath / AP / NTB
view more
– During the previous corona peaks, there were many infected, but there were not so many car accidents or shooting episodes. Now that people are returning to living as normal, they end up in car accidents and are shot, and have cardiac arrest – so we treat all these patients in addition to the covid patients, says Campagne.
Ends
She further reports that the ambulance company is struggling with too few paramedics, who are physically and emotionally exhausted and end up in the industry.
The same tendency also applies to doctors and nurses, says Rachel Spray, a nurse at Kaiser Hospital in Fresno.
