Garcia tours new Valley field hospital
Parking lot facility adds capacity for COVID patients
LANCASTER — Congressman Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, toured the California Emergency Field Hospital set up by Samaritan’s Purse in the parking lot at Antelope Valley Hospital on Friday morning.
Samaritan’s Purse deployed the field hospital in partnership with AV Hospital. The 50-plus bed hospital includes six tents — three for men and three for women — to provide desperately needed surge capacity for COVID-19 patients.
Kelly Sites, medical director for the Lancaster Emergency Field Hospital, led Garcia, Lancaster Vice Mayor Marvin Crist, Councilman Ken Mann, Lancaster Baptist Church Pastor Paul Chappell, AV Hospital CEO Ed Mirzabegian and other dignitaries on a tour of the hospital.
“Imagine what we’ve done with the hospital’s help and God’s help,” Sites said. “We basically built from nothing an entire ward.”
The field hospital will remain for at least 30 days, after which they will assess their needs, Sites said.
The tour closed with a prayer led by Chappell in one of the tents. “This is so powerful,” Garcia said. Garcia later called it the “miracle in the parking lot.”
“This is not something that just shows up randomly,” Garcia said.
“This is the product of good people praying for help, asking for help, and acting and coming out here and proactively setting up this facility. I don’t even like using the word tents because this is a medical facility that
will save hundreds of lives over the course of the next month or so.”
Mirzabegian said the field hospital set up at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds was too far away. They needed something closer to the hos
pital’s emergency department. Samaritan’s Purse personnel and hospital staff are putting together the final touches.
“If everything works out, some
time (Saturday) night we’re going to start sending the patients here,” Mirzabegian said.
The next surge in COVID patients is expected in about two weeks.
“If it comes, we are ready,” Mirzabegian said.
If the surge does not come, they can shift some of the 140 COVID-19 patients to the field hospital to open up beds inside.
Samaritan’s Purse is an international Christian relief organization led by the Rev. Franklin Graham, the son of the late pastor Billy Graham. The nonprofit organization provides spiritual and physical aid to victims of war, natural disasters, disease, famine, poverty and persecution in more than 100 countries.
The emergency field hospital at AV Hospital marks the nonprofit organization’s fifth emergency field hospital response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A deployed hospital is staffed with 20 to 60 medical personnel, including highly skilled physicians, nurses, surgeons, lab technicians, anesthesiologists, pharmacists, water and sanitation engineers, and other support-services professionals, according to the organization.
Crist, standing inside one of the Samaritan’s Purse tents, said the emergency field hospital was a good example of the need for the 65-year-old AV Hospital to pass a bond to upgrade its facilities.
“We need to get it built,” Crist said.
Crist added without Chappell and Mayor R. Rex Parris’ contacts, Lancaster would not have the emergency field hospital.
“The city’s spending millions to do this,” Crist said. “But if your mom, dad, grandfather are in here, is it worth it? Yes.”
Measure LC, the three-quarter cent sales tax increase approved by Lancaster voters in November, also helps. The measure increases the city’s sales tax rate to 10.25% starting April 1.
“Without the people passing Measure LC, this isn’t here,” Crist said.