A public health agency that operates hospitals in Houston says area hospitals are transferring some patients to other hospitals in and outside of the city as Texas sees a surge in
coronavirus cases.
In an interview with a local news station, Charlie McMurray-Horton, the associate administrator for Clinical Integration and Transformation at Harris Health, spoke about the capacity issues affecting Harris Health hospitals.
"It really has intensified in the last month or so," McMurray-Horton said on Tuesday, according to
ABC 13. "We are actively trying to transfer out ICU and surge patients that are COVID positive and under investigation, just because we don't have the capacity to treat those patients."
Harris Health System operates Ben Taub and LBJ hospitals in the Houston area. The hospitals are transferring both COVID-19 patients and others to help free up hospital beds, Bryan McLeod, a spokesperson for Harris Health, told CBS News on Wednesday. In the last 24 hours, they have moved 33 patients to other hospitals and are working to relocate at least 15 more, McLeod said.
McLeod said some patients have been transferred to other hospitals in the Houston area and some have been brought to Galveston, Conroe and other nearby cities. He said this is a common practice to free up beds at the hospitals.
According to
data from the state's department of health and human services, there were 6,533 COVID-19 related hospitalizations in the state as of Tuesday. Across the state, there were 13,711 available hospital beds, 1,405 available ICU beds and 1,405 available ventilators, according to the data.
