Utah hospitals expect to ration ICU care within a week or two

[essentialsaltes]

With new coronavirus cases shattering records on a daily basis, Utah’s hospitals are expected to begin rationing care in a week or two.

Under the criteria, which would require Herbert’s approval, patients who are getting worse despite receiving intensive care would be moved out first. In the event that two patients' conditions are equal, the young get priority over the old, since older patients are more likely to die.

At least two Utah hospitals have opened overflow ICUsthis month.

 

[Gifts From Above]

This is horrible. This virus is getting really bad.

 

[JackRT]

But we've already turned the corner.


Haven't we?

 

[Pommer]

But we've already turned the corner.


Haven't we?

The corner:

 

[bèlla]

Our numbers are up and now we're in the top 5. We've never been out of the top 10.

 

[Paulos23]

Be careful out there folks. Wear a mask and stay 6 feet away.

 

[KCfromNC]

But we've already turned the corner.


Haven't we?

I thought it was going to go away in April, just like magic.

 

[essentialsaltes]

[Laurie Terry,] a 47-year-old mother and wife, had suffered a heart attack in her Herriman, Utah, home. According to her sister, she had to be revived four times in the ambulance on the way to the nearest hospital.

Once there, the medical staff and her doctor quickly determined Terry would likely die if she didn't get the more sophisticated life-saving treatment found in an intensive care unit of a larger hospital.

"He (the doctor) told us right away, we're doing everything we can to try and find a hospital that can take Laurie, and we can't find one," Stephanie Deer, Terry's sister, said.

"If you would have seen the look on that doctor's face, he was incredulous. He couldn't believe he was telling us this."

patients suffering other life-threatening medical events -- non-Covid related -- are in a dangerous competition for limited specialized medical care.

Utah is in the middle of the worst period for new Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began. The state is among the 14 that reported their peak Covid-19 hospitalizations in the past week, according to the Covid Tracking Project.