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published on August 27, 2021 - 2:37 PM
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The Fresno County Department of Public Health and local hospital authorities collectively expressed a note of urgency about the Central Valley health care system on Friday.

About 44% of Fresno County is fully vaccinated, shining an ever-brighter light on the unvaccinated who make up the majority of growing hospitalizations in the county. 

Dr. Tom Utecht, chief medical officer for Fresno-based Community Health System, said the Community hospitals in Fresno and Clovis are at capacity.

“We are at almost a tipping point here,” he said. “We are completely at capacity, in fact, over capacity at our facilities.”

Both Clovis Community Medical Center and Community Regional Medical Center currently sit at more than 100% capacity, which means people are being treated in areas that are not designated for patient care — conference rooms and shelled out construction spaces. 

Although the Covid numbers are not as high as the winter months, hospitalization rates are much higher now, he said. This is complicated by the fact that staffing levels are running thin, and those left on staff face burnout.

“It’s a shortage across the state and the nation, and that means we’re in a disaster mode at this point,” Utecht said. 

Ivonne Der Torosian, vice president of Saint Agnes Medical Center, said it’s hard to place patients from the emergency rooms because the hospital is completely full. It has converted four units for critical care and ICU beds.

“We run out of ICU beds on a daily basis,” Der Torosian said. 

She echoed Utecht’s sentiment that Saint Agnes is facing a health care worker shortage, which is true across the Central Valley. Crowded hospitals across the Valley also make it difficult to transport patients to other hospitals. 

Dan Lynch, EMS director, said that emergency transport is being heavily affected by the crowded hospitals. Wait times for emergency drop-offs have in some cases exceeded three or four hours because of capacity limits. He said it is unprecedented in the more than two decades he’s worked in the field. 

In some cases, when ICU patients are transferred, they are taken out of the area entirely because local hospitals don’t have room. The cost is burdensome on the health care sector, Lynch said. 

It requires a whole ICU team, equipment and transportation costs — in some cases, even an airlift. 

“Our health care system is in a state of paralysis,” Lynch said. 

“Our health care professionals are exhausted. They’ve seen this pandemic go on for far too long,” Der Torosian said.  


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