Officials with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital hosted a livestream Tuesday to discuss how the hospital has been able to handle an increase in the number of COVID-19 patients, as well as the importance of a coronavirus vaccine.
On Tuesday, officials with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital took to social media to give any update on the hospital’s capacity to handle the recent surge in COVID-19 cases.
“We have a number of beds, fortunately, because last November we opened our new six-story tower here at Henry Mayo, which has private rooms, a number of floors where we’re able to house patients for various conditions,” said Dr. Larry Kidd, Henry Mayo’s senior vice president.
Bed usage in the new tower has been expanded after seeing a surge in new COVID-19 cases and patients. Because of the new patient tower, the hospital is able to add beds and floors to their coronavirus care unit as needed.
“We have had an increase in admissions to the hospital with COVID patients,” Kidd said. “We’re starting to see patients a bit sicker than we did for probably three to four months. We saw a decline in the acuity of patients and the number of patients with that. We have had some additional treatments become available. So we are advanced in those treatments here at the hospital for patients that are candidates for those various treatments.”
Dr. Bud Lawrence, medical director of Henry Mayo’s Emergency Department, remarked that the increase in patients is a sign that residents are “listening” to their bodies. He also apologized for the slow wait times from evaluating triaged patients before admitting them.
“We apologize, but we are working on that, so please bear with us,” Lawrence added. “As you know, as Dr. Kidd pointed out, this is essentially another massive surge we’re in. We’re in a situation where we don’t want to be stressed to our limits.”
Lawrence also spoke about the importance and function of a COVID-19 vaccine and how that may affect Santa Clarita and Henry Mayo itself.
“The goal of the vaccine is basically to train your immune system, to recognize and kill a virus when we’re talking about viral vaccines, which is what we’re going to talk about here today,” Lawrence explained. “So we want to trick your immune system into recognizing that particular virus that gets into your system and then attacking that virus and killing it and making it go away.”
See Related: Southern California Region Drops Below ICU Capacity Threshold
Lawrence continued to explain that historically, viral vaccines are “attenuated vaccines,” meaning they are a deactivated virus that one’s immune system can learn to create a response for and attack when an active virus enters one’s system.
The first COVID-19 vaccines that are coming to the United States are instead MRNA vaccines.
“What happens is the same thing,” Lawrence said. “You get an injection in your arm, just like you would with your flu shot, but this vaccine has some genetic material in it that when it gets into your cell, your cell then creates proteins on the outside of the cell, that mimic proteins that are on the virus. This then tricks your immune system again into becoming immune to that virus.”
The two major vaccines that are expected to be released soon are from Pfizer and Moderna, with 43,000 and 30,000 test subjects, respectively. The Pfizer vaccine is said to be about 90 percent effective and the Moderna vaccine is said to be 94.5 percent effective, according to Lawrence.
As of Tuesday, a total of 42 COVID-19 deaths had been reported at Henry Mayo since officials began counting back in March.
There were 65 COVID-19 patients in the hospital as of Monday, Dec. 7, while 439 patients have been discharged since the hospital’s first case was reported in March, according to Patrick Moody, spokesperson for the hospital.
The COVID-19 patients at Henry Mayo are being treated in a specialized unit in the hospital’s patient tower where they are able to receive the same level of care as the intensive care unit (ICU), without taking beds in the ICU for non-COVID patients, according to Moody.
“We can provide ICU level care in that unit,” Moody said in a previous KHTS story. “But, by not having the patients in the main hospital, that frees up our ICU for patients who don’t have COVID.”
As with nearly every hospital in California, concern arises not from the number of beds available at Henry Mayo, but rather that there is adequate staffing for the influx of patients, according to Moody.
Ed. Note: Michael Brown contributed to this report.
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