Los Angeles ambulance crews will no longer take people with a low chance of survival to hospitals. The corresponding order was issued by the county emergency medical agency, reports the Los Angeles Times.
In particular, we are talking about those patients who have cardiac arrest, no signs of breathing, movement, pulse or blood pressure, despite the attempts of doctors to resuscitate the patient on the spot. County doctors have also been asked to conserve oxygen and only supply oxygen to patients whose blood oxygen saturation has dropped below 90 percent.
The authorities took such a radical step due to the acute shortage of hospital beds, ambulance crews and medical resources. It is reported that due to the unprecedented pressure on the health care system, patients can spend up to eight hours in ambulances while waiting for their turn to be hospitalized. At the same time, hospitals try to discharge patients as soon as possible in order to make room for those in need of emergency care. Officials fear that the situation will only worsen in the coming weeks due to the surge in the incidence of COVID-19 after the New Year holidays.
Earlier it was reported that California ran out of places in morgues against the background of raging in the state of the coronavirus. The state’s hospitals in intensive care units also have almost no free beds.