17 November, 2020
A nurse in El Paso, Texas, has told of the 'horrific' conditions at hospitals in the city as the state grapples with one of the worst surges in coronavirus in the United States,
and prison inmates are brought in to help carry the dead in morgues.
Registered nurse Lawanna Rivers took to Facebook to describe her time at the
University Medical Center in El Paso where she claims patients were taken to a
room called The Pit and given just three rounds of CPR before being
pronounced dead.
In a video posted to Facebook November 7 she said: 'My first day at
orientation, I was told that whatever patients go into the pit, they only come out
in a body bag. I saw a lot of people die that I felt like shouldn't have died.
'This hospital's policy was they only get three rounds of CPR which was only
six minutes, this out of all the codes we had, there is not a single patient that
made it.'
Her shocking statement came as pictures taken Saturday show offenders,
dressed in PPE gear, helping the El Paso County Medical Examiner's office
carry the dead to refrigerated trucks amid a mounting death toll that threatens
to overwhelm the state.
The virus that is surging throughout the U.S. has been unsparing across Texas
where the latest figures show more than one million people have tested
positive for the virus; more than 20,000 people have died across the state as of
Monday.
In El Paso data released by the city Sunday confirms six more people had died
from the virus. There were 981 new COVID-19 cases with more than 73,000
people testing positive in total. The city said there were seven additional deaths
Monday bringing the death toll to 769. The deaths include two men and one
woman in their 70s, two men and one woman in their 80s, and one woman in
her 90s. All seven had underlying health conditions.
Last week daily deaths were increasing at a slightly higher rate with 15
additional deaths reported Saturday; 16 on Friday and 29 deaths reported
Thursday. As of November 6 the death toll was 657, indicating the rise since
then.
An El Paso County Sheriff's Office spokesman confirmed to The Texas Tribune
that up to eight inmates have volunteered to carry out the work for $2 an hour.
The inmates are not normally paid for their community work but are said to
have 'refused to work unless they were compensated' for this task, the
spokesperson confirmed.
An inmate from El Paso County detention center waits to help load bodies wrapped in plastic into a refrigerated temporary morgue trailer in a parking lot of the El Paso County Medical Examiner's office on Monday
The inmates, who are also known as trustees, are volunteering for the work and earn $2 per hour amid a surge of COVID-19 cases in El Paso. They are pictured Monday
Texas surpassed 20,000 confirmed coronavirus deaths today, the second-highest in the U.S., with active cases in El Paso now well over 30,000. The inmates from El Paso County detention center are pictured Monday
El Paso County detention inmates help move bodies to refrigerated trailers outside the Medical Examiner's Office which is located next to a cemetary in El Paso, Texas on Saturday amid a surge of COVID-19 deaths
Pictures taken Saturday show offenders, dressed in PPE gear, helping the El Paso County Medical Examiner's office carry the dead to refrigerated trucks amid a mounting death toll that threatens to overwhelm the state
El Paso County, Texas, has been forced to deploy mobile morgues and enlist the help of inmates to move the bodies of COVID-19 victims into these cold storage facilities
The use of inmates to help carry bodies is thought to be a temporary measure until the National Guard can take over the task
Last week officials in El Paso announced plans to add four additional morgue trailers, bringing the total number there to 10
An El Paso County Sheriff's Office spokesman confirmed that up to eight inmates have volunteered to carry out the work
Rivers added: 'The morgue was so full of bodies that they had ran out of room, so
once the doors opened to the pit they come wheeling in a body already in a bag.
'[They] lined them up with the rest of our alive patients, because they had to store
the body in there, because the morgue was out of room. They've had to bring in
freezer trucks because there's so many bodies.
'The facility I'm at has surpassed the one I was at in New York. I have never
experienced, and have no words, for what I just experienced in El Paso, Texas.'
Across the US more than 11 million people have tested positive; 246,854 Americans
have died.
The border county of El Paso has a population of just 839,238. There are at least 33,935 active cases - an all-time high - and 1,111 are hospitalized. A little less than a third of those patients are in ICUs.
In total, nearly 75,000 people in El Paso County have been infected, representing about nine percent of the entire population.
In Houston, hospitalizations nearly doubled this week compared with last month for the virus. A total of 2,351 people have died from the virus in Harris County; more than 174,000 people have tested positive.
And in Dallas health officials on Sunday reported 1,458 additional cases and one additional death bringing the total number of people infected there to more than 100,000 cases and 1,142 confirmed deaths.
Texas has recorded the second-highest death count overall in the U.S., trailing only New York, according to researchers from Johns Hopkins University. It's the 22nd-highest per capita at 69.7 deaths per 100,000 people.
Despite that, many Texans are said to be experiencing 'quarantine fatigue'.
Dr. Erin Carlson, an associate clinical professor in the College of Nursing and Health
Innovation at the University of Texas at Arlington, told The LA Times: 'People have quarantine
fatigue. They're tired of it. They want to go over to their friend's house and have
poker night just like they used to.
'Pretty much any contact tracer you talk to, they're seeing small gatherings and
that's driving the rates up. They're tired and they want to see their families, so
they're going ahead to the birthday parties.'
The virus that is surging throughout the U.S. has been unsparing across Texas where the latest figures show more than one million people have tested positive for the virus; 19,559 have died across the state. El Paso is pictured Saturday
In El Paso data released by the city Sunday confirms six more people had died from the virus, bringing the death toll to 762. There were 981 new COVID-19 cases with more than 73,000 people testing positive in total. El Paso is pictured Saturday
Despite the startling figures many Texans are said to be experiencing 'quarantine fatigue'. El Paso is pictured Saturday
Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of Baylor College of Medicine's National School of Tropical
Medicine, added: 'The country is in free fall. It's in disaster mode. It's really scary in
terms of the surges on the ICUs, the hospital staff getting exhausted, and you know
mortality is just going to shoot up. These are lives that don't have to be lost.'
The use of inmates to help carry bodies is a temporary measure until the National
Guard can take over the task, WWJ reports. The inmates are part of El Paso County Sheriff’s Office's 'trustee program', and are low-level offenders.
Judge Ricardo Samaniego said that using prisoners to move the bodies is a last
resort.
'If there’s no personnel, no one to help out, and there’s volunteers, even if they are
inmates, then that’s what we’re left with', he told KFOX14. 'It was just a temporary focus, and we’re waiting for the Texas National Guard to help us out with that.'
Last week officials in El Paso announced plans to add four additional morgue trailers, bringing the total number there to 10 as of Wednesday.
For nurse Rivers, who described leaving patients in the The Pit, she said 'to know
that the only way that those patients was coming out of that pit was in a body bag'
left her feeling 'not ok from an emotional mental standpoint.'
She also alleges certain patients were given preferential treatment, adding: 'The
nurse that orientated me had one patient, she was called the 'VIP' patient, she was
a doctor's wife.
'They pulled out all the stops for that woman — there was nothing that they didn't do
for that woman. And guess what? She was the one patient that made it out of that
ICU alive.'
A spokesman for the University Medical Center told KVIA: 'After watching the video,
while we cannot fully verify the events expressed, we empathize and sympathize
with the difficult, physical and emotional toll that this pandemic takes on thousands
of healthcare workers here and throughout our country.
'This particular travel nurse was at UMC briefly to help El Paso confront the surge of
Covid-19 patients.'
So far, Texas leaders have given no indication of forthcoming restrictions to keep
people from gathering and spreading the virus. Instead, Republican Gov. Greg
Abbott in recent days has been emphasizing that new therapeutics and vaccines are expected to become available soon.
On Friday the Eighth Court of Appeals in El Paso ruled against an order closing
nonessential businesses including gyms and salons, sending the case back to a
district judge who had upheld it with instructions to halt the shutdown.
State Attorney General Ken Paxton sued to overturn the order County Judge
Ricardo Samaniego issued in October, despite a surge that has overwhelmed
hospitals and funeral homes in the border city of El Paso.
Samaniego said he is unhappy with a state appeals court ruling overturning his
order closing nonessential businesses to slow the spread of the coronavirus, but he
won't appeal it.
He said he would work with business leaders and health officials to develop ways to
protect public health and the economy. A previous order limiting nonessential
businesses to 50% capacity, closing bars and dine-in restaurant services at 9 p.m.
limiting social gatherings to no more than 10 people and a mask mandate remain in
place, he said.
Date released by the city of El Paso as Texas officials grapple with one of the worst surges in coronavirus in the United States
COVID-19 hospitalization rates for El Paso, Texas, seen in data released by the city
COVID-19 hospitalization rates for Texas states as a whole
COVID-19 positive case rates for Texas states as a whole
COVID-19 death toll for Texas states as a whole
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