AdventHealth sets up tents for new patients
AdventHealth hospitals across Central Florida, including Orlando, are setting up tents outside of their facilities to “treat potential COVID-19 patients in a number of scenarios,” officials said on Monday.
The health system began putting up the tents over the weekend.
“Part of our planning includes the installation of tents should we need the additional space to best care for our community. The tents are not currently in use but will remain in place as part of our readiness efforts,” said an AdventHealth spokeswoman in an email.
By Monday, the number of confirmed cases of the illness in Florida climbed to 137, merely two weeks after the first cases of the illness were reported in the state. And this number is bound to climb in the coming days as the state gets more testing capacity now that commercial labs like Quest and LabCorp have come on board.
The second Orange County COVID-19 patient has died from the illness, officials reported Monday.
The best way to slow the spread the virus and reduce the odds of overwhelming the local health systems is heeding to the advice of health officials: stay home and avoid large gatherings.
In the past 72 hours, theme parks have closed, schools spring breaks have been extended and federal officials have dropped the limit for public gatherings from 50 to 10 individuals.
In Central Florida, all health systems have implemented strict visitation rules, screening everyone who enters their doors and limiting the number of people that can accompany the patients into the buildings.
The hospitals say that they’re equipped to identify, isolate and treat COVID-19 patients.
Orlando Health said that as the only health-care organization in Central Florida with a Level One Trauma, it is prepared for patient surges.
“While no one knows how many Central Floridians with COVID-19 will require acute care, we do know that 80% of COVID-19 patients do not require hospitalization. For the other 20%, we will be well prepared,” said an Orlando Health spokeswoman in an email.
AdventHealth officials said they’re working with vendors and internal teams to ensure adequate supplies such as masks, protective equipment for team members, wipes and hand sanitizers. The health system has also established a multidisciplinary leadership team “who is working around-theclock to ensure we have capacity, supplies, equipment and staffing to handle a potential coronavirus patient or influx of patients.”
Some physicians on the front lines still worry about the potential shortage of not only masks and hand-sanitizers, but also lifesaving devices like ventilators, which are used for patients with severe acute respiratory failure.
“The one concern I have is for the people that do get severely ill and sick, that need the resources like a ventilator or need to be intubated, that kind of stuff that can be overwhelming to some degree,” said Dr. Brian Nobie, an emergency physician in Orlando. “Because if you have several patients at once who are that sick, you’re going to need several ventilators, you’re going to need personnel to take care of them. That’s a drain on resources and if you’re not adequately prepared that could kind of cause some issues.”
During a press briefing on Monday, President Donald Trump said that he’s told the states to get equipment such as respirators and masks on their own, instead of waiting for the federal government, in case they can get it faster that way.
“We have stockpiles now. We’re ordering tremendous numbers of ventilators, respirators masks, and they’re ordered, and they’re coming and we have quite a few at this point. I think we have a lot, but if they can get them directly it’s always gonna be faster,” he said.
He did not have the exact number of available ventilators.
According to one report, the U.S. has about 160,000 ventilators on hand and about 8,900 in reserve, but some projections estimate that as many as 1 million Americans may need ventilators throughout the outbreak, reported the Business Insider.