NGH has 2 ventilators

Alissa Eckert, MS; Dan Higgins, MAMS
This illustration, created at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reveals ultrastructural morphology exhibited by coronaviruses. Note the spikes that adorn the outer surface of the virus, which impart the look of a corona surrounding the virion, when viewed electron microscopically. A novel coronavirus, named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan, China in 2019. The illness caused by this virus has been named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

By Tracy R. Mesler

A critical component to the nation’s, and this community’s ability to survive the Coronavirus of 2020 is the number of ventilators available to help keep patients alive as their lungs fill with fluids as their immune system attempts to fight off the virus,

Nocona General Hospital has two ventilators. Its tertiary hospitals – those who accept transfers of critical patients – also have a limited number of ventilators.

Asked what happens when a hospital has more patients than ventilators Nocona General Hospital CEO Lance Meekins voice turned somber, “then there’s going to be some very, very hard decisions made about who (gets a ventilator and who does not.)”

Read more in this week’s edition of The Nocona News.