Widespread power outages are complicating care delivery for Houston hospitals amid a severe heatwave in the wake of Hurricane Beryl, The New York Times reported.
As of July 11, more than 1 million people remained without power. A heat advisory was also in effect for all of Southeast Texas. The outage and heat wave, both of which could last for several more days, have prevented many hospitals from discharging patients to homes without air-conditioning, according to the report.
The resulting capacity challenges have strained many hospitals in Houston, with some ambulances facing three-hour wait times to drop off patients, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said during a July 10 media briefing.
To free up inpatient beds, the Texas Division of Emergency Management helped set up a temporary field hospital at NRG Park, a large sports complex in the city. About 40 patients were transported to the facility from local hospitals on July 10, with at least another 70 en route as of July 11, according to Houston Public Media. The temporary hospital is capable of housing up to 250 patients and will remain operational for five to seven days, according to the Times.
Despite the region's largest hospitals remaining open, 12 were operating under internal disaster protocols as of July 11.
"Internal disaster means they either don't have enough staff or enough resources to take care of the patients that they have, which is why we put up a 250-bed hospital at NRG (Center) and added a minimum of 25 ambulances to this mix to be able to move those patients around as fast as possible," Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, told Houston Public Media.