CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — As the surge in coronavirus cases continues to rise in South Texas, our hospital capacity is limited by the amount of healthcare staff.
City-County Health Officials said they are working alongside hospitals to determine a plan to prevent our healthcare system from becoming overwhelmed.
Corpus Christi Mayor Paulette Guajardo said our local hospital systems are working towards opening up additional areas that will accommodate more people. But they still need the man power.
"These numbers are alarming," Mayor Guajardo said. "We can’t side rail that. We are trying to bring in teams as you know. Nurses are an issue. Doctors are an issue. Those are all challenges right now."
The Coastal Bend Regional Advisory Council coordinates with area hospitals for emergency response.
Hilary Watt, CEO of the CBRAC, said currently, there is no shortage of durable medical equipment, but our hospitals are less staffed than they were pre-COVID.
“I think we demonstrated last summer in the height of COVID, the ability to create beds to treat our community," Watt said.
Watt said she doesn't anticipate hospitals having to turn away patients at this time.
“It remains to be seen how it will go this go around with the delta variant and the cross sections of our community who remain unvaccinated," she added.
Watt said the next step to address this issue is to hire more nurses. Also, using resources such as FEMA or funds from the American Rescue Plan, but it’s up to City-County officials to make that call.
“We are actively pursuing solutions right now and we are actively looking at how we can help them," Mayor Guajardo said. "There will def be assistance on the city side to help relieve the incoming patients who are overwhelming the hospitals right now."
For the latest updates on coronavirus in the Coastal Bend, click here.
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