Dangers of Hospital Overcrowding Affects Us All
With COVID-19 cases reaching an all-time high since the pandemic began, Altus Lumberton Hospital, serving the rural areas of Hardin County remains open and fights for their patients’ lives. Recently, KFDM news interviewed the hospital’s medical director, Dr. Adriano Goffi to get an insight as to the many dangers of hospital overcrowding and how it can adversely affect us all.
Watch the Video: Dangers of Hospital Overcrowding Affects Us All
According to the CDC, COVID-19 Related Deaths are up 155% this past month.
Dr. Goffi explains, “We had started to get ahead of it when people started to get vaccinated and then, now with this new variant, it just got better at its job.”
The Altus Lumberton Hospital medical director pointed out how this much stronger, and more contagious variant changed the rules of the game. By the time that most COVID-19 patients walk into an emergency room, they are in serious need of receiving ICU care.
“It’s getting you significantly more sick, by day two, three, and four, and therefore by the time that you come in, you’re getting all of those serious consequences…”
Number of Patients Heavily Outnumber Hospital Beds
The growing need for critical hospital care has caused a massive shortage of beds available in hospitals. Local health care workers overwhelming sense of despair as they face the challenges of COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and, they fear, deaths.
“Unfortunately,” Dr. Goffi explains, “there are people who are staying here that needed an ICU bed for over 6, 7 days…”
In spite of the many challenges, the medical staff continues to weather the storm doing everything possible to help care for their patients.
Everybody is doing their best, doctors are willing to take on patients…”
“Remember that, the vaccine is not saying that you can’t ever get it, you just won’t need hospitalizations for the most part… It is not a cure but it opens up hospital beds for the rest of the population that need it.”” – Dr. Adriano Goffi, MD, MPH – Lumberton Medical Director
Dr. Adriano Goffi, MD, MPH
The Dangerous Ripple Effect
The more serious result of the current hospital-overcrowding phenomenon is that it affects all patients not just COVID-related emergencies. Patients requiring hospitalization due to traditional emergencies such as a heart attack, a vehicle accident or needing a cancer treatment are being impacted. This ripple effect potentially could result in deaths that would have been prevented otherwise.
Altus Lumberton Hospital Continues to Help Save Lives
The staff at Altus Lumberton Hospital have done their part to help care for the growing number of patients needing one-to-one, personalized care.
Staff continues to spend hours on end calling hospitals, praying that they find another bed for another critical care patient. Each bed found is a victory whether nearby or out of state if necessary. Everyone’s mission is clear, save as many lives as possible. At Altus Lumberton Hospital, we would like to thank our healthcare teams here in Lumberton as well as our other locations in Baytown, Lake Jackson and Waxahachie and all brave healthcare workers across the nation. We know that you may come home exhausted, frustrated, and in tears but you walk back in each day ready to take on new challenges. You truly are our heroes.
Please help us spread awareness to put an end to this pandemic. At Altus we truly care and firmly believe that “One life lost is one life too many.” Remember that we are here for you and your family 24/7 with free medical screening for the whole family. All of our facilities, including Altus Lumberton Hospital, are staffed with onsite Emergency Trained Physicians, and equipped with state-of-the-art ER technologies.
Altus Lumberton Hospital is located at 137 North LHS Drive, Lumberton, TX 77657. For more information on their services contact them via phone at 409-440-3621 or Contact Us.
