On Thursday, the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council held a meeting with the Dallas City Council Members as they explored the use of a pop-up hospital.
Stephen Love, the president of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council, said he told Mayor Eric Johnson that additional staff would be more helpful than a pop-up hospital at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center.
He said three months ago when they talked about the field hospital, outside help from Navy personnel would have been used to staff the pop-up hospital with physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists. Love said it would be better to use that staff in their current buildings versus a room full of cots.
"We feel it would be great if we could use them to supplement our existing staff at hospitals, as we increase capacity and that would be a better use of those, so that's what we expressed to the mayor, very appreciative of him wanting to get involved and help us but supplementing our workforce would probably be what we would prefer doing over necessarily a pop-up hospital," Love said.
Mayor Johnson Tweeted about their meeting on Thursday morning and said the DFW Hospital Council doesn't want the pop-up hospital right now because "They believe they are capable of handling a COVID-19 hospitalization surge in their existing medical facilities."
Back in March and April, Texas National Guard members from around the state helped build 250 beds at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. It was set up as an overflow just in case hospitals needed it.
Love said COVID-19 patient's acute level of care, is different when it comes to the coronavirus.
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"You can't take someone and put them in a pop-up hospital on a cot if they have COVID-19 and really require ICU," Love said. "and a lot of the support services, whether it be a dietary cafeteria, some of the allied health services that we refer to aren’t readily available at a pop hospital."
