Additional staffing and space to help ECRMC care for COVID patients
EL CENTRO — Throughout the COVID- 19 pandemic, El Centro Regional Medical Center Chief Executive Officer Dr. Adolphe Edward has explained the hospital has not been constrained by space but, instead, by staffing.
Nonetheless, the hospital is expecting to receive more of both by the end of July in order to better care for admitted COVID- positive patients.
On Thursday morning, ECRMC began admitting patients in its new medical- surgical COVID tent in the north parking lot.
“I hope you never have to be admitted to this tent,” Edward said while giving a tour of the tent on Facebook Live on July 10.
This tent, which has more than six bed spaces, comes in addition to the few occupied tents that have already been set up in the hospital’s south parking lot.
By Monday, ECRMC will be getting 41 additional intensive care unit nurses.
These additional ICU nurses will be arriving just in time, as the hospital will be complying with a state request to expand its ICU capacity to 30 beds by the end of the month. Currently, the hospital is functioning with 14 ICU beds.
Also by the end of July, the hospital will receive 71 additional medical- surgical nurses and 20 additional respiratory therapists.
On Friday morning, the hospital reported it has a COVID inpatient count of 61.
This is less than the hospital’s all- time high during the pandemic, but relatively high compared to the inpatient count in recent weeks, Edward said.
One day in May, the hospital had more than 65 COVID inpatients.
On July 10, the hospital had 44 COVID patients.
“We are not surprised to see that our numbers of COVID and our total patient volumes have steadily gone up,” Edward said Thursday during a Facebook Live update.
He said this in reference to the surge the hospital was expecting in patients as a result of the gatherings that took place during the Fourth of July.
During Thursday’s update, Edward said he’s been to several locations within the city and has noticed that people are still ignoring the statewide guideline of wearing a face mask.
“And I’m disappointed,” he said. “I don’t know what else we can do, but, please, continue to wear your masks.”
He said he’s also aware that things are starting to open back up in Mexicali.
“I just encourage you to be very careful of where you’re going to go, and who you’re going to hang out with,” he said. “None of us that are in healthcare today believe that this COVID-19 is just going to disappear in the next couple of months. We have a long haul ahead of us. …
This journey is yet to be done.”