News L.A.'s Covid has turned so bad they’re now calling in the National Guard to help move the bodies

[Notorious]

COVID has gotten so bad in L.A. that they’re calling in the National Guard to help move the bodies.

Hospital morgues are so full that the National Guard is being called in to help county workers as corpses are moved into storage at the L.A. County Department of the Medical Examiner-Coroner. The overcrowded crypts at hospitals are a result of private mortuaries running out of space and staff to handle the unprecedented number of COVID-19 deaths.

County officials have been concerned about patients suffering from things such as strokes, heart attacks and seizures waiting in ambulances outside hospitals, said Cathy Chidester, director of the county Emergency Medical Services Agency. “The early intervention, in some of these cases if you don’t get it, may lead to worse outcomes,” she said.

The crush of patients has led the county to allow certain types of ambulance patients to be offloaded into the waiting room instead of the emergency room, according to memos issued by the EMS agency.

Additionally, 911 patients who have a do-not-resuscitate directive will not be taken to acute-care facilities such as a hospital, nor will certain trauma patients whose hearts have stopped.

Watching COVID-19 patients suffer is horrifying. Their eyes widen with panic as they struggle to take in enough oxygen and gasp for breath. It is a process much like suffocation.

“You hope for some of these patients who are not going to survive, that they actually become unconscious before this, because it’s very scary,” Byington said. “It’s no different than probably drowning.”

Bodies pile up, patient care falters as COVID-19 devastates L.A. County hospitals

L.A. County hospitals hit breaking point: 'No one would believe this is in the United States'

www.latimes.com