There were 565 acute care hospitals in Texas as of December 2017, according to a 2018 Texas Health and Human Services report, the most recent data available.
“If this continues, and I have no reason to believe that it will not, there is no way my hospital is going to be able to handle this,” Esmaeil Porsa, MD, president and CEO of Houston-based Harris Health System, told state legislators Aug. 10. “There is no way the region is going to be able to handle this.”
Multiple standalone emergency rooms in Texas have temporarily shut down amid the rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations, while two Houston hospitals are erecting overflow tents outside.
As of Aug. 12, Texas is averaging about 14,117 new infections per day, according to the Times. About one in five U.S. hospitals with ICUs, or 583 hospitals, recently reported that at least 95 percent of ICU beds were full, the Times reported.
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