Old Sears Store To House Field Hospital Amid Coronavirus: RivCo
RIVERSIDE, CA — A closed department store building in Riverside has been selected as the second Riverside County site for a temporary field hospital, it was announced Thursday.
The 90,000-square-foot building on Arlington Avenue that once housed Sears will be used for a 125-bed hospital using supplies provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The California National Guard is assisting in setup this week at the old store. It's not immediately clear when it will open for patients. According to a county news release, approximately 30-40 staffers are sought to work at the Riverside location.
The facility — formally called a federal medical station — is designed to help ease burdens on hospitals across the region, which have planned for a surge in COVID-19 patients. Another 125-bed federal medical station is already up and running at the Riverside County Fairgrounds in Indio. On Wednesday, that facility took in 28 patients who were evacuated from the Magnolia Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Riverside. Read more: Abandoned By Caretakers, 83 Nursing Home Patients Evacuated
“Moving out the medically fragile folks from Magnolia Rehab was just the beginning,” said Dr. Cameron Kaiser, Riverside County public health officer. "There will be many folks who’ll need care when our hospitals start taking hits, and this second station means we’ll have the same added capacity in our western county as we do in the east."
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The two federal medical stations include all the equipment needed to run a basic hospital, including beds, bed sheets, portable sinks, medication and complete units of personal protective equipment — N95 masks, surgical masks, gloves, gowns and face shields, according to county officials.
The facilities are to house stable, less severe patients, while existing hospitals care for the critically ill, officials said.
“This facility will ease the burden on our local hospitals during the pandemic, which will allow them to perform more effectively for everyone,” said Riverside Mayor Rusty Bailey. “On behalf of our local medical community, I appreciate the county’s efforts to increase capacity in our area.”
“We will very soon need every single hospital bed in Riverside County,” said Vice Chair Karen Spiegel, Second District Supervisor. “This medical station will give us sorely needed bed space, so that medical teams can continue their heroic efforts to treat more patients in need.”
This article originally appeared on the Banning-Beaumont Patch
