According to a report from ABC13, a contingent of medical staff from the U.S. Army arrived at Houston’s United Memorial Medical Center (UMMC), discreetly entering the facility through a back door.
The city continues to be a hot spot for the spread of the virus. For the UMMC’s chief medical office, the groups’s arrival represented some relief in the state’s relentless fight to control the coronavirus that surged in Texas after Memorial Day. It’s a temporary addition of nearly 100 nurses and specialists.
In two days, the chief will have worked every day for the past four months at what was an 85-bed neighborhood hospital. The facility has since been transformed into a COVID specialty hospital, where the most of the beds and intensive care unit capabilities serve those sick enough to be hospitalized and treated.
Until then, staff used a combination treatment of steroids, vitamin C, and medication to prevent blood clots worked to control the symptoms. UMMC prepared an unused wing of the building for more COVID patients, which is the the same wing the Army’s medical support staff will be assigned.
New patients will now be transferred to the Army units rather than wait on space at hospitals around the region that are already at capacity. In some cases, patients brought to hospitals by ambulance had to be cared for in emergency rooms until more space was available.
