County Deploying Mobile Field Hospitals to Help Ease COVID-19 Burden on Local Health Care System
The OC Health Care Agency is deploying mobile field hospitals (MFHs) to local hospitals this week to support facilities overwhelmed by a surge in COVID-19 patients.
The County reported 2,173 more coronavirus cases on Tuesday with 10.4 percent of adult intensive care unit beds available in the local hospital system.
The mobile units can expand current hospital capacity by adding more beds to existing grounds. They are housed in large trailers and contain canvas tents with hard flooring and temperature-controlled units equipped with running water, toilets and showers, generators and air purifiers. The Health Care Agency has eight trailers to support at least 200 patient beds.
The units can be used to expand emergency department capacity or specialty care unit beds, mass vaccination facilities and more. Fountain Valley Regional Hospital (50 beds), St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton (25 beds) and University of California, Irvine (50 beds) have requested the MFH facilities.
The County said planning is underway with additional hospitals to encourage an equitable countywide distribution of the available mobile beds.
