Butte County hospitals preparing patient surge plans Part 1

Butte County Public Health says every hospital in the area has its own surge plan in place.

Action News Now spoke with local hospitals to see how they are preparing.

So how are local hospitals managing as the percentages climb?

Action news now reporter krisitan lopez is live at enloe medical center.

Kristian, is there a plan in place..

If beds keep fill up?

I reached out to our three hospitals in butte county to see how they are preparing but was only able to get in touch with one who reassured me that they are prepared... dr. roy shannon at oroville hospital says they've been preparing for a surge for months and they are ready to help the community with whatever they need.

I asked him - would the hospital be prepared to not only handle a surge in coronavirus cases but also a mass casualty... he told me that they are ready to handle whatever they need but told me he could not provide much details on their specific plan.

"we will take care of people when they come in and we will take care of our community,exact ly how we will do it...the planning for that is just too complex to try to get into a short news segment."

"as we saw in the past in the spring, there were triage tents set up, they have those types of resources, i know that they've looked and identified other buildings and locations where they can stand up surge capacities."

Enloe medical center also assured me that they have a multi- layered surge plan in place that would allow them to increase their bed capacity when there are specific triggers met.

When i reached out today - hospital officials said they could not provide any more details about this right now.

Butte county public health says the state will start to review the icu bed capacity in our area this weekend to see if we will qualify to get off the stay at home order.

We could have an answer early next week.

Live in chico kristian lopez action news now coverage you can count on.

Thanks kristian -- the university of minnesota's covid tracking project also gies some insight -- showing about 28% of butte county's icu beds are taken up by covid patients.

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