Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press. [P360P].
Los Angeles County is in a real calamity due to the COVID-19 health crisis, which has so far left nearly 11,000 dead in the area, where ambulance crews have now been asked not to transport those patients with little chance of survival.
The Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Agency issued a memo last week to ambulance workers stressing that adult patients (18 years or older) in out-of-hospital traumatic and non-traumatic cardiac arrest will not be transported if return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) is not achieved in the field.
Thus, if the patient has no signs of breathing or pulse, EMS will attempt to resuscitate the patient for at least 20 minutes. If the patient is stabilized, they will be transported to a hospital, but if they are pronounced dead at the scene or a pulse cannot be restored, the paramedics will not take them to the hospital.
"This order, issued by county emergency medical services, is really very specific to patients who suffered cardiac arrest and cannot be revived in the field," said Dr. Jeffrey Smith, chief operating officer of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
"Such patients have a very low survival rate if they are transported to the hospital. Therefore, at this time, it is considered probably useless," the specialist added in an interview with CNN.
The media outlet added that nearly 7,900 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 in Los Angeles County alone, and 21 percent of them are in intensive care units, putting enormous pressure on health services and intensive care units.
That decision is also compounded by the fact that the increase in COVID-19 patients has led to a shortage of supplemental oxygen, which means that some patients treated by EMS will not receive it.
"Given the acute need to conserve oxygen, effective immediately, EMS should only administer supplemental oxygen to patients with oxygen saturation below 90 percent," Los Angeles County EMS said in its release.
