“Narcan saves lives by reversing actual or suspected overdose to opioids,” Riverside University Health System CEO Jennifer Cruikshank, who is also serving as the hospital’s interim manager, said Thursday. “PVH plays a role in the critical infrastructure for our community. We are proud to be able to offer this free resource and access point from the hospital.”

Narcan, formally known as Naloxone, is an opioid antagonist nose spray that can arrest the effects of an overdose from fentanyl and other illicit drugs. It’s carried by fire crews and sheriff’s deputies countywide.

Palo Verde Hospital received more than 200 Narcan kits via the California Naloxone Distribution Project.

“A single dose of Narcan is administered as one spray into one nostril,” according to a hospital statement. “Each kit contains two nasal sprayers. Narcan should be stored in a cool, dry place. Given Blythe’s extreme summer heat, residents are strongly advised not to store Narcan in a vehicle, where high temperatures can degrade the medication and reduce its effectiveness.”

Residents can procure a free kit from staff in the hospital’s emergency room, which is the only functioning component of the medical facility, at 250 N. First St.

The hospital is under bankruptcy protection and a six-month management services agreement with the county, which is working to rectify the facility’s ongoing financial and operational challenges.

Without emergency services at the hospital, the area’s roughly 20,000 residents would lose access to “timely treatment for life-threatening conditions where minutes matter,” according to a county statement in January. Outside of the hospital, the nearest option for emergency healthcare is more than 70 miles away.

Preliminary county health department statistics indicated there were 229 suspected fentanyl-related fatalities countywide in 2025, compared to 351 confirmed poisonings in 2024, a roughly 40 percent decline.

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HHS’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) is also releasing a related report — an analysis of the new CMS data examining trends in changes of ownership over the past six years.

These new data and analysis support President Joe Biden’s Executive Order on Promoting Competition, and advance the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal of improving transparency around nursing facility ownership and enhancing nursing home safety and quality, as outlined in President Biden’s State of the Union Action Plan for Protecting Seniors by Improving Safety and Quality of Care in the Nation’s Nursing Homes.  

“Today, for the first time, we are releasing data on the impact of hospital and nursing home consolidation for people across our nation. By improving the quality of reporting by hospitals and nursing homes on ownership and consolidation, we also advance President Biden’s agenda to promote competition, lower health care costs for American families, and protect patients,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.

“Hospital and nursing facility consolidation leaves many underserved areas with inadequate or more expensive health care options,” said CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure. “This new data gives researchers, state and federal enforcement agencies, and the public new opportunities to examine how mergers, acquisitions, consolidations, and changes of ownership impact access to care, care quality, and prices as a way to enable greater transparency and insight into the hospital and nursing home industries.”

CMS’s data on the changes of ownership — which includes details on mergers, acquisitions, and consolidations — is now available on data.cms.gov. The data can help researchers, enforcers, and the public analyze trends and issues in health care markets, and more specifically, provide insight into how the ownership of health care providers impacts costs and outcomes of consumers. For example, ASPE’s report identifies several findings from the new dataset:

• Changes of ownership have been much more common in nursing homes than hospitals over the past six years.
• There is also wide ownership variation by state. For instance, 19% of hospitals (14 out of 73) in South Carolina were sold during this period, while most states had fewer than 4% of hospitals change ownership.
• A majority (62.3%) of Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs) that were purchased have a single organizational owner, 6.9% have multiple organizations owners, while 18.2% have only individual owners and 12.7% have both types of owners.

CMS expects to release updated change of ownership data on a quarterly basis. The CMS data will enhance transparency for hospitals and nursing homes patients, potential patients and their loved ones, as well as for policymakers and the communities where these facilities are located.

This new data release is just one of many steps HHS is taking to increase transparency and accountability, and to boost competition in the health care industry.

For more information on the HHS data release, including publicly available data files, please visit: Hospital Change of Ownership: https://data.cms.gov/provider-characteristics/hospitals-and-other-facilities/hospital-change-of-ownership; and Skilled Nursing Facility Change of Ownership: https://data.cms.gov/provider-characteristics/hospitals-and-other-facilities/skilled-nursing-facility-change-of-ownership.

For the ASPE report analyzing the new change in ownership data, please visit: https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/changes-ownership-hospital-skilled-nursing-facilities

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The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to achieving a government-wide vision that addresses the maternal health crisis in the U.S., including by reducing maternal mortality and morbidity and advancing maternity care quality, safety, and equity. As a part of this commitment, the White House held the first-ever federal “Maternal Health Day of Action” on December 7, 2021, at which time Vice President Kamala Harris issued a national Call to Action to Reduce Maternal Mortality and Morbidity. In addition, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) – through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) – announced critical steps to improve maternal health by supporting the delivery of equitable, high-quality care for all pregnant and postpartum patients. The White House also issued presidential proclamations on April 8 and April 13 declaring the week of April 11, 2022, Black Maternal Health Week.

Specifically, CMS shared intentions to pursue rulemaking for the establishment of a publicly-reported hospital designation to drive improvements in maternal health outcomes and advance maternity care quality, safety, and equity. CMS followed this announcement with a guidance memo encouraging hospitals to consider implementation of evidence-based best practices for the management of obstetric emergencies, along with interventions to address other key contributors to maternal health disparities.

Proposed Establishment of a Publicly-Reported Hospital Designation to Capture the Quality and Safety of Maternity Care

In this proposed rule, CMS is proposing the establishment of a maternity care quality hospital designation to be publicly reported on a CMS website. This would be the first-ever hospital quality designation by HHS that specifically focuses on maternal health. Under this proposal, CMS would initially give this designation to hospitals that report “Yes” to the Maternal Morbidity Structural Measure finalized in the FY 2022 IPPS/LTCH PPS final rule for adoption in the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program. 

The Maternal Morbidity Structural Measure is an attestation specified to capture whether hospitals are: (1) participating in a structured state or national Perinatal Quality Improvement (QI) Collaborative; and (2) implementing patient safety practices or bundles as part of these QI initiatives. The reporting period for the measure began in October 2021, and data will be submitted by hospitals for the first time in May 2022. CMS will post measure data for October to December 2021 on the Care Compare website in Fall 2022, and post initial results for the hospital designation beginning in Fall 2023.

Expansion of Designation Components

As stated above, the proposed designation would initially be based only on data from hospitals reporting an affirmative attestation to the Maternal Morbidity Structural Measure. In addition to capturing hospital implementation of best practices in maternity care, this approach would allow for use of data already reported in the Hospital IQR Program, thereby avoiding any additional data collection or reporting burden for hospitals. 

Additional measures that would comprise the designation are expected to evolve over time. In future notice-and-comment rulemaking, CMS intends to propose a more robust scoring methodology for the designation that may include other maternal health-related measures finalized for the Hospital IQR Program measure set. Other potential measures could include the two electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs) being proposed in this rule, if finalized – the Cesarean Birth eCQM and Severe Obstetric Complications eCQM – measures that are equity-focused, and/or measures that capture patient-reported outcomes or experiences of care.

Ultimately, CMS’ goal is not simply to grant hospitals a maternal health “gold star,” but to do so in a way that is meaningful for patients and families in search of facilities with a demonstrated commitment to the delivery of high-quality, safe, and equitable maternity care.

Request for Information to Advance Maternal Health Equity

In addition to the proposed publicly-reported hospital designation, CMS is requesting feedback on additional ways the agency can advance equity and reduce disparities in maternity care. 

CMS defines health equity as “the attainment of the highest level of health for all people, where everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain their optimal health regardless of race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, geography, preferred language, or other factors that affect access to care and health outcomes.”

CMS is specifically exploring how to address the U.S. maternal health crisis through existing policy and program requirements, including, but not limited to, the Conditions of Participation (CoPs) and through measures in CMS quality programs. In this proposed rule, CMS invites public comment on the potential use of such approaches as well as on best practices in maternal health data collection and reporting, community engagement and partnerships, assessment of patient experiences, and prevention of racism and bias in maternity care.

Resources:

• FACT SHEET: Vice President Kamala Harris Announces Call to Action to Reduce Maternal Mortality and Morbidity, please visit: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/12/07/fact-sheet-vice-president-kamala-harris-announces-call-to-action-to-reduce-maternal-mortality-and-morbidity/ 
• Quality, Safety, and Oversight Guidance Memo, please visit: https://www.cms.gov/files/document/qso-22-05-hospitals.pdf 
• Description of the Maternal Morbidity Structural Measure, please visit: https://www.cms.gov/files/document/maternal-morbidity-structural-measure-specifications.pdf

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I checked at the front desk, hopeful. Soon, though, a bad premonition took hold of my girlfriend, Jennifer. She begged me to leave.

I refused.

My mask held me so tight against my chair that my lungs collapsed. According to the triage nurse: Code orange.

“Please, come with me,” said Jennifer. It broke my heart to say no.

I surrendered myself to the hospital.

The security guy took my girlfriend away from me. I had COVID. No company allowed.

My eyes closed and I woke up in bed, a nasal cannula, delivering oxygen. The nurse left and came back shortly with a device that looked like those obnoxious iPhones, the side of a brick.

She dropped it on the bed next to my right shoulder. Stapled five stickers on my chest and abdomen. A wire was taped to my left index finger. Five more wires were attached from the stickers to the bulky device.

The nurse turned it on. I was excited to see the blue screen come to life. I could check my pulse, oxygen levels, and heart activity.

I settled in my bed. I fell asleep, again. A doctor woke me up. I told her my main concern was the fever.

She left and came back. Then gave me water with three Tylenol pills and then proceeded to explain my treatment plan: Remdesivir!

No way!

According to the FDA approval of Remdesivir, of the 541 patients who took this medicine during the trials, 59 died.

I had the right to refuse treatment.

Another doctor visited me. He pushed Remdesivir, too. In vain.

I spent two days in the emergency room before I was moved upstairs. The new room had a bathroom. Two TVs hung on the wall. One bed.

I had no idea when I would get out of there. A doctor said I couldn’t go home because I was receiving 5 liters of oxygen per minute. I needed to show I could breathe on two liters without having my oxygen levels drop below 90.

The following morning, I had no fever and was able to sit on the bed for a few seconds.

One of the previous doctors came and talked Remdesivir. Again.

I wish these doctors had the same drive to push alternative treatments for Coronavirus.

I wanted to go home.

“You’re not improving”. “No fever for two days. How is that not improving?” I sent a text message to my girlfriend Jennifer.

Later that afternoon, the Discharge Office called me to ask a few questions.

No. I don’t have a walker at home or a cane. No big stairs to climb. The bathroom was on the same floor as my bedroom.

This call happened on November 15, 2021. Imagine my happiness.

The next morning, the Physician Assistant from hell came to visit. She asked how I was feeling. “Great!”

“No. You are not. You are on 10 liters of oxygen.”

“How come? I was on 5 liters last night. Who changed my liters?”

“I did.”

“It was up to the respiratory guy to decide to change my liters.”

She ignored me and asked me to lie on my stomach—and with that, suddenly, my health took a U-turn. I thought I was choking on my lungs.

Shortly after, a respiratory therapist came and set a high-flow oxygen machine for me. My liters were set to 90.

Finally, I fulfilled the expectations of whoever oversaw my treatment. I felt that my lungs were being rinsed with a power washer.

The respiratory therapist came back a couple of hours later. He set the oxygen machine to 45 liters. By the end of the night, I was on 35.

I guess God was taking care of me. The next morning, I’m sitting on my bed. I was feeling better. I even got off my bed with the help of a food table. I did five sit-ups. I wanted to keep going but I shouldn’t push my luck.

Two people walked into the room pushing big machines. I had x-rays of my lungs and an EKG.

I was looking forward to seeing a doctor this morning. The PA from hell showed up instead.

“How are you doing today?”

I talked about my new accomplishments.

“You need to try a new medication.”

Then she handed some sheets about Baricitinib, a medicine with severe side effects, including death. She also mentioned that she was not sure the new med was going to work. I had refused Remdesivir. Now my best prognosis was the ICU.

A true demon.

I asked her for the results of x-rays and EKG. She didn’t know I had those tests done.

“You need to take Baricitinib.”

“No. I don’t.”

The PA left the room, angry.

A few minutes later, I received this text message from my girlfriend: “Alex, you’re probably going to end up in the ICU. You’re requiring more and more oxygen. Maybe you should take the medicine they’re offering. Please I beg you to try. Please take the medicines.”

I answered: “Call them and tell them that I’m going to take it.”

A nurse came and gave me the fricking lethal pill.

About two hours later, I sent a message to my girlfriend. I was transferring the title of my house to my mom. It’s excruciating to say goodbye to the people you love. I couldn’t bear the pain of leaving them.

I decided to fight back. I took just a dose of Baricitinib. The odds were on my side. It was a momentary weakness.

Change the way you think, and you will change the way you feel. That night my heart rate was 170. The following morning, I wrote a friend: “Good morning. I had a wonderful night.

Beginning at 6 p.m., I started listening to light classical music. It has been relaxing, amazing to let myself go with the melodies, like swimming on my back and letting the waves take me to a sublime place on the horizon. My heart rate was now 89.

When the evil PA came to check on me, the usual happened. According to her, my condition was still deteriorating. That’s it!

I asked my girlfriend to call the Patient Advocate. I wanted the evil PA removed from my care. I bet I had developed high blood pressure and anxiety because of her.

On November 23, the doctor came and I asked him what caused my sudden recovery. He said “steroids.” I objected. The steroids helped with the inflammation but weakened the immune system.

My next question was more specific. What stopped the virus from replicating?

He said my immune system. I couldn’t contain my laugh. I asked the doctor not to insult my intelligence.

I let the doctor know that while the hospital was pushing hard for me to take Remdesivir, I was holding tight to a tissue box stuffed in with Ivermectin, an antiviral with anti-inflammatory properties.

Alexander Hernandez | Contributed

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Providence brought on six intensive care unit nurses, with four of the nurses quitting one day after their assignments began, the hospital said in a Sept. 1 media statement.

Providence St. Joseph Hospital CEO Roberta Luskin-Hawk, MD, said the nurses’ departure was “an unfortunate and unique circumstance,” and attributed their leaving to onboarding training challenges and the nurses’ lack of familiarity with the hospital’s EHR.

“The primary reason was that they were not familiar with our electronic medical record system — a system that is used by many hospitals,” Dr. Luski-Hawk said. “Additionally, there were issues with the onboarding of these caregivers which created a challenge for them acclimating to our hospital.”

The four nurses who quit claimed they did not receive access to the hospital’s electronic charting system, a California Nurses Association spokesperson told the publication.

“The travelers were met without necessary resources, including access to the unit’s electronic charting system and were immediately handed full patient assignments with little in the way of orientation,” the spokesperson said. “So, four out of the six [travel nurses] quit. In the words of one of them, the travelers were ‘thrown to the wolves’ and with all the opportunities available to travelers these days, they just didn’t come back.”

Jackie Drees | Contributed

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A California doctor is being praised as a hero after he managed to safely deliver a baby, despite being hurt in a car crash on his way to the hospital.

Dr. George Alkhouri was badly injured following the crash on July 2 — but that didn’t prevent him from going above and beyond to make sure that little Bradley Stanghellini made a safe entrance into the world, according to NBC affiliate KCRA.

“I wasn’t thinking about the pain in my leg, or the blood on my face, or my hand,” Alkhouri, of Golden Valley Medical Centers, recalled to the outlet. “Just, all I’m thinking [is], ‘How am I going to get there and how I’m going to deliver this baby?'”

Without that sheer determination, it’s possible that things could’ve gone very differently that evening for Alyssa Stanghellini and her newborn son.

“It’s pretty remarkable,” Alyssa told ABC affiliate KFSN. “He’s a remarkable human being that I just can’t express enough gratitude to.”

Earlier in the night, after Alyssa had gone into labor, she discovered that Bradley’s heartbeat had become dangerously slow and the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, KCRA reported.

“It was just a whirlwind,” Alyssa recalled to the outlet. “I was in a lot of pain, so I was just looking for relief and hoping everything would be okay.”

Added her mom, Amanda Maxwell, to KCRA: “It’s just like a panicked situation. You just don’t know what’s going on.”

Though Alkhouri was monitoring Alyssa’s progress from his home, he soon realized that he had to take action and get her checked in at Dignity Hospital in Merced, according to KCRA.

“I found the baby in a lot of stress and there is a need to take the baby and deliver him immediately,” Alkhouri explained to the outlet.

But things didn’t go as planned when Alkhouri was on his way to the hospital and ended up being hit by a drunk driver, KFSN reported, citing local police.

“All the glass just shattered and came in my face and my hands,” Alkhouri told the outlet.

Immediately after the collision, Alkhouri said he was able to get out of his car and check on the other driver, according to KCRA. Though his phone stopped working, the doctor was able to call 911, the outlet reported.

Once a police officer arrived at the scene, Alkhouri borrowed his phone to call a charge nurse at the hospital and let her know what had happened, KFSN reported.

“I told her I’m going to do my best to be there,” he explained to the outlet. “When the police officer heard us talking, he offered to release me and let me go.”

That offer from the cop ultimately allowed Alkhouri — who was bloodied and in pain — to make it to the hospital in time and help deliver baby Bradley at 1:03 a.m., according to KFSN.

“I was standing on only one leg when I was doing the surgery,” Alkhouri explained to the KCRA, adding that he even had a nurse in the operating room remove shards of glass from his face.

As his injuries continue to heal, Alkhouri said moments like this remind him of why he got into the profession in the first place.

“I’m so happy to see Alyssa and her baby, healthy and together,” he told KCRA. “This gives me more push to do it again, honestly.”

As for Alyssa, she is eternally grateful to the doctor for safely bringing her son into the world.

“I feel like God had his hand over the situation, so I’m just very grateful that Dr. Alkhouri was able to make it even though he was injured,” she told KFSN. “I don’t know if we would have Bradley here if he wasn’t able to make it.”

Joelle Goldstein | Contributed

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In 2019, Hahnemann Hospital closed in Philadelphia. It was a safety net hospital that cared for many low-income patients, or patients with no health insurance. A lot of hospital staff, patients, and nearby residents were outraged: How could an investment banker close a historic institution as important as this one just because it wasn’t making enough money? 

As the health reporter for Philadelphia’s NPR member station, Nina has covered every twist and turn of this story. But the implications beyond the loss of thousands of jobs and a venerable historic institution weren’t immediately clear. Where would the patients go? Would the remaining hospitals be able to absorb them? Would health outcomes slip? We figured there was no better place to focus than on the maternity wards, since so many had already closed.

Then in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced hospitals to stop doing elective surgeries, which many relied on because these were lucrative procedures that paid for important but non-lucrative services, like labor and delivery, and emergency care. Hospitals suffered, and some filed for bankruptcy or closed. 

These two pivotal news events for Philadelphia led us to question this country’s unexamined assumptions about health care: It is a business and it should make money, unlike government infrastructure, roads or the military. 

This question is not immediately newsworthy or dramatic. Editors were not interested. 

We thought one way of getting at that larger theme through a focused, local approach would be to see what happened when Hahnemann Hospital closed, including its maternity ward, one of few that remained in the city. Health care workers were very worried when that happened, and they cited a long history of hospitals in Philadelphia closing maternity wards, since that particular service just does not bring in enough revenue. Our hypothesis: closing the maternity ward at Hahnemann would lead to worse health outcomes for pregnant people and their children. 

We soon realized we could not answer that research question.

There wasn’t any data available for 2020 yet, and even if there were, the pandemic transformed health care far beyond the effect one hospital closure would have. Also, the previous research on this topic, which stopped at 2005, showed a more complex trend: the chances of infant mortality rose after maternity wards closed, but then leveled off.

We changed our research question to address those broader issues: What happened when all the other maternity wards closed in the past 20 years? How do we explain the complex outcome?

It was already a difficult story to sell, and we soon found that our story is neither a disaster story, nor a solutions story. No catharsis, and no outrage. 

We leaned on what we had: powerful anecdotes about midwives pushed to the edge from being overworked; pregnant people forced to deliver in hospital hallways due to lack of space; department heads who paid more in medical liability insurance for doctors than they paid those doctors in salaries. We used those anecdotes to carry a radio story, a medium where it is very difficult to present numbers in an impactful way because the audience only listens to a story once, often half-heartedly while driving or falling asleep. 

We talked to department heads, staff who worked in maternity wards and clinics across the city, the former health commissioner, and researchers to paint as complete of a story as we could about what happened when all these maternity wards in Philadelphia closed. 

The 2020 Data Fellowship gave us the training, skills, and mentorship we needed. It was also a useful commitment device: we had to present our story, regardless of how complex it was. 

But after reflecting on the experience, this is what we would have done differently:

1. Look for data immediately after forming your research question. We had an ambitious plan that included looking through hospital discharge data and working with health researchers who had done some of this work, but we did not have the time or money to do this in the end. Neither did our research partners because this is not their day job and they were taking care of patients during a pandemic. If we had started sooner, we might have had time to connect with someone who gave birth around the time when a maternity ward closed. That is the one perspective we feel is missing from our story. 
2. Make time for this project during work hours. Our editors are very accommodating, but we are still health reporters during a pandemic — beat reporters at a time when there is constant breaking news. We should have worked out an arrangement early on where we could have devoted days in the week to focus just on this project.  

We will keep working on this. After all, we still want to address our original question as much as we can: What happened because Hahnemann Hospital closed along with its maternity ward? The question of hospital financing for maternity care continues to be relevant: two giant health systems in Philadelphia are cleared to merge, and for the first time, a birthing center will open in 2022. 

Will the merger lead to less competition and higher health care prices, as previous research indicates? And will the new birthing center overcome the historic hurdle of offering a service that is both vital and unprofitable? 

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SAN MARCOS, Calif., March 29, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — TrueCare, a nonprofit healthcare provider for the underserved in North San Diego and South Riverside Counties, officially launched its MyChart® patient portal today to help patients easily access and manage their health information, now at their fingertips, in one secure online website.

The MyChart portal gives TrueCare’s nearly 60,000 patients a convenient and simple way to stay connected to all their healthcare information from their computers and smartphones.  Patients have quick online access to request appointments, see health reminders, send and receive secure messages to their provider directly, see their lab results, request prescription refills and review their medical records in English or Spanish.

“Our patients deserve the best healthcare solutions we can offer, and MyChart is our patients’ personal connection to better health and well-being. Especially now as we’ve seen an increase in virtual visits, we continue to strive to improve our online experience,” says TrueCare’s President and CEO, Michelle D. Gonzalez.  “This electronic system will improve the overall patient experience and care coordination, which has long been our goal. Our patients deserve the best.”

“MyChart gives me peace of mind,” says Teresa Marin whose 2-year-old son is a TrueCare pediatric patient. “If I forget something about him or his health, I can easily check his MyChart records including the doctors’ notes, see if he is missing any immunizations or request to schedule an appointment.”

TrueCare’s medical staff is equally excited about the launch of MyChart.  “Today, people lead such busy lives, especially our patients with their responsibilities to work, home and family. We are pleased to make their lives easier by improving the patient to doctor experience with a system so simple to use and so beneficial to all of us,” says Dr. Marie Russell, TrueCare’s Chief Medical Officer and Chief Operating Officer (CMO/COO). 

As a primary healthcare provider in North San Diego and Riverside counties, TrueCare often refers its patients to other specialties, hospitals and medical centers such as Rady Children’s Hospital – San Diego, UC San Diego Health, Scripps Health and others. MyChart is embedded in Epic System’s electronic health record, the software system that integrates with these healthcare organizations and others across the globe. 

“TrueCare’s MyChart Patient Portal is designed with our patients’ safety in mind,” adds Tracy Elmer, Chief Innovation Officer for TrueCare. “Because these healthcare organizations also use the Epic system and offer MyChart, TrueCare can now securely interoperate with them more effectively so patients have all of their health information in one place.”

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Coronavirus infections and hospitalizations in California are plummeting weeks after it appeared some hospitals were so overwhelmed they might have to start rationing care, and the state’s top health official said Tuesday if the trends continue by early March the number of hospital patients will fall by half.

When cases were surging at an unprecedented rate in early December state officials used plunging intensive care unit capacities to issue stay-home orders for most of California. The situation was the most dire in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley regions, which exhausted all their regular ICU beds and stayed at 0% capacity through January.

But the capacity now has reached 9% in Southern California and 11% in the San Joaquin Valley and in four weeks the state projects the rates will increase to 44% and 35%, respectively. The other three regions of the state are in even better shape now.

All stay-home orders have been lifted, though all but four rural counties continue to be in the strictest of four tiers for reopening. Mountainous, sparsely populated Alpine and Trinity counties moved Tuesday to the tier for a “moderate” level of new transmissions.

California’s worst surge of the pandemic started in mid-October and accelerated through the end-of-year holidays before peaking in early January and then starting a steep decline.

In just over three weeks, the number of statewide ICU patients has fallen from a record of just under 4,900 to about 3,800, while overall hospitalizations have dropped by a third. State models project that at this rate, the number of hospitalizations will fall from about 14,000 to around 6,500 a month from now.

In the last week, the state’s rate of positive tests dropped to 6.4%, which Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly termed another “positive sign about the trajectory of transmission across the state.”

The number of new virus cases reported Tuesday was just over 12,000, the lowest daily figure since November. In early January, daily counts routinely were above 40,000.

The record pace of deaths may also be starting to fall. After averaging 544 per day last week, the last three daily counts have averaged 371. The state’s total is now above 41,000, the second highest level in the country after New York.

Los Angeles County alone topped 7,000 deaths since Jan. 1, the same number as the period from February through October last year, county public health officials reported.

“The County continues to make progress in reducing the number of daily new cases and slowing transmission,” the health department said in a statement reporting 205 more deaths and 3,763 new coronavirus cases. But it noted the number of new cases is still substantially higher than the fewer than 1,000 new cases each day in September.

Similarly, 18 of the state’s 58 counties, all in Northern California, have case rates below 25 per 100,000, Ghaly said. That’s one-quarter as high as they had been, but it’s still three times the rate needed to drop into a lower tier with fewer business and social restrictions.

“The chance for another surge in California is real” if people drop their guard or if mutations of the virus become prevalent, Ghaly said. “Our case rates are down, but they’re not low.”

Ghaly warned people against gathering irresponsibly for Super Bowl celebrations on Sunday, and the state posted animated reminders in English and Spanish on a webpage.

Championship celebrations last fall in Southern California to mark the World Series victory for the Los Angeles Dodgers and NBA crown for the LA Lakers marked “the beginning of a surge that led to a lot of death in California, a really hard and dark period,” Ghaly said. ”We want to see this Super Bowl does not become that next big spread event.

“Try to share as little as you can except the cheers,” he quipped. ”Don’t fumble this.”

The state is taking a number of steps to prepare for the possibility of a fourth wave. It is keeping in place an order that speeds patient transfers between medical facilities, will continue bringing in outside health care workers and is helping hospitals make sure they have enough oxygen for patients with the respiratory disease, Ghaly said.

But it won’t continue past Monday with a waiver that temporarily increased the number of patients a nurse could treat to better meet the crush of cases during the surge.

“This is an incredible victory for patients and nurses, because we know that safe staffing saves lives,” California Nurses Association president Zenei Triunfo-Cortez said.

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Dr. Sumanta Chaudhuri-Saini, daughter of Hemet Global Medical Center owner Kali P. Chaudhuri is not much known medically in our community, but most residents of ten years or more remember her wadding held at the family residence on Lake Street. She sat atop one of the elephants imported from India for the occasion.

That was then. Now she is a practicing physician and presented tome as an expert about our Hemet Hospital. And although her looks are a good way below her age, she is an encyclopedia of our medical center.

I began by asking about the most pervasive rumor that hospitals refer to flu cases as COVID-19 because it brings more money. True or false?

“Absolutely not true,” she declares. “We are required to categorize every case, plus our annual audits would show the difference. You can bet that no insurance company is going to pay more for a flu patient that was disguised as COVID. It just doesn’t happen.”

How badly, I asked, has the COVID virus affected this hospital?

“Of course, it has had an impact onus, but hasn’t taken over like it has in places like Los Angeles, which is inundated with COVID. Of course, Los Angeles is a very large city with more cross-city traffic than we have. It has occupied certain floors and we have minimized classic emanations. If a patient is on a COVID floor, we make sure any instruments or necessary equipment from that floor is completely sterilized before it is moved anywhere else. As to how many cases we’ve had, at the peak, we had about 85 cases at the Hemet Hospital, although there were considerably more in the Valley because not all cases require hospitalization. We are not and have not been over-crowded. Our biggest problem is staff. Every hospital in the State is competing for nurses. We certainly urge attendances to nurses schools because it is a good profession, well paid and much needed.”

So there is a shortage of nurses?

“There certainly is. It is a very competitive business. Every hospital is running short. Not every bed in the hospital is taken by a covid patient. We have other sick people who need treatment. ICU nurses see a lot of very sick COVID patients. That’s currently our biggest challenge.”

Has there been a surge since Christmas?

“We have not seen an after Christmas/New Year surge that was expected. I think we are somewhat out of the weeds from that now. It takes about 14 days for the surge to appear and we are past that now. That makes us feel somewhat comforted that it doesn’t seem like we are going to see a huge surge but are concerned about the variance of COVID that seems to be spreading at a faster rate than the previous strain.”

Have we received any new strains here?

“Not that I know of. We haven’t noticed a huge surge of new patients that would suggest the new strain has arrived here. That doesn’t mean we won’t. We are watching very carefully.”

How many deaths have occurred from COVID here? I’ve heard somewhere in the fifties.

“I’m not sure of the exact number. I would say somewhere between 50 and 60 so far.”

Has any of the staff resisted getting vaccinated?

“A few…some of the staff say they want to wait and see – to make sure that there are no bad reactions. However, the majority of the staff is getting their vaccinations without incident. You may not know, but at the beginning of the pandemic, Hemet Hospital was the first community hospital that had drive-through testing when nobody knew where to go get tested. All they needed was a doctor’s order. Now Hemet Public has a testing schedule which can be availed by appointment by calling the City of Hemet I believe. 

“Our hospital was also the first to have a plasma donation program where we contacted people who have been tested or admitted to the hospital to come in afterward and donate plasma because they have recovered so that we can give plasma to others suffering from the disease. Taking donated plasma from one who had COVID and recovered to give to new cases. It has the antibodies. People who have had the virus have a high amount of antibodies in their plasma.”

As I’m sure you have heard of those who like to downplay the hospital. As one who has had two major surgeries here, I’ve never had better service. That’s my personal experience.

“Glad to hear you say that. We have a remarkable nurses training course here and many doctors now serve their residency here. We are on top of every new medical practice and very proud of our ratings.”

Incidentally, Hemet Valley Global Medical Center is one of the highest-rated in the County.

rustystrait@gmail.com

Rusty Strait • Senior Reporter

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