Health & Fitness
New Surge Hits Santa Monica's Providence Saint John's I.C.U.
Staff at Providence Saint John's thought it was over. But now, the Delta variant is driving a surge of new cases and new questions.
SANTA MONICA, CA — Staff at Santa Monica's Providence Saint John are watching a wave of new virus-related cases pack the hospital's 23-bed intensive care unit, The New York Times reports.
The hospital has expanded its unit — adding even more beds behind the plastic wall where patients battle the virus.
And the staff is tired, like many emergency and medical workers facing the virus. And as COVID-19 cases surge across the U.S. and as cases hit rates not seen in California since February, front-line workers ask: When will this end?
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"People are coming in sicker," Dr. Terese Hammond told The Times.
People fighting the virus in the I.C.U. are also local and younger, Hammond said. Before, staff saw patients who were transferred from other medical facilities. Now, they are from the area, she added.
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About 80 percent of Santa Monicans are vaccinated; 20 percent of people in Santa Monica have still not been vaccinated. In January, area leaders pleaded with locals to stay home as Santa Monica hospitals were on their way to reaching a breaking point.
And while staff felt optimistic just weeks ago as California reopened, they're now left with questions as they treat people with other severe illnesses, which is straining the I.C.U. and pushing hospital workers to exhaustion.
Masha Crawford, who works with COVID-19 patients at the hospital, describes what it's like.
"As an I.C.U. nurse, you know you're going to see a certain amount of death," she told The Times. "In this pandemic, you see people who should not be dying die."
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