Critical care beds fill up at Kern hospitals as COVID-19 surge looms

The critical care units at area hospitals are filling up, driven by increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases, hospital leaders said Monday while urging the public to do all it can to minimize further spread of the virus.

About 120 patients were in intensive care units at Kern’s 10 acute care hospitals on Monday, including several critical care patients being held in emergency departments because some hospitals have no free ICU beds. About 40 percent of those patients, or approximately 50, are COVID-19 patients.

In total, there are about 150 ICU beds among Kern’s 10 hospitals, leaving about 31 available.

Another 78 ICU beds can be added when hospital surge plans are fully implemented, according to Kern County Public Health Services spokeswoman Michelle Corson.

Despite the growing number of ICU patients, hospital administrators said more beds would be added to accommodate more patients if needed.

“This is what we do and we’re prepared to handle it,” said Russell Judd, CEO of Kern Medical, which is the only trauma center between Fresno and Los Angeles.

Kern Medical had no ICU beds available as of Monday and was having to hold overflow patients in the emergency department, Judd said.

Mercy Southwest and Ridgecrest Regional hospitals had also reached their ICU capacity, officials said.

Bakersfield Heart Hospital and Adventist Health Tehachapi each were down to one free ICU bed, two ICU beds were available at Adventist Health’s Delano hospital and four of the 20 ICU beds at Mercy Downtown were still free, hospital officials reported.

The area’s two largest hospitals had the most availability in their ICUs. About half the ICU beds, or roughly 15, were free at Bakersfield Memorial, said CEO Ken Keller. Adventist Health Bakersfield had 12 beds free in its 36-bed unit, according to spokeswoman Megan Simpson.

Administrators at Kern Valley Hospital could not be reached for comment.

At Kern Medical, just two of its 24 ICU beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients. The other beds are mainly filled by trauma patients. Trauma cases are up about 20 percent since July, Judd said, though he was unsure why that was. Kern Medical has 17 other COVID-19 patients in non-ICU beds.

And at Bakersfield Heart Hospital, none of the ICU patients are COVID-19 patients, said spokeswoman Laura Sabedra.

Hospitalizations are expected to continue increasing locally in the coming weeks.