California Hospital Maxes Out

January 6, 2021 4:11 am

LOS ANGELES (AP) – The crush of patients with the coronavirus is so severe in Los Angeles that they exceeded the normal capacity at one community hospital. The interim chief of operations and nursing at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital said on Tuesday that it had 135 patients with COVID-19 at the hospital that has a capacity of 131 beds. It was treating 215 total patients. It’s emblematic of the surge of coronavirus cases in Los Angeles County that has overwhelmed medical staff, created a shortage of oxygen and led to a directive to ambulance crews to stop transporting patients they can’t revive in the field.