A Texas hospital is so overrun with coronavirus cases that officials say it will send the patients least likely to survive home to die

https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-starr-county-hospital-forced-choose-who-sent-home-die-2020-7

Sinéad Baker
July 24, 2020


A hospital in Starr County, Texas, is so overrun with coronavirus cases that officials there said it would choose which patients to use its resources on and send those most likely to die back home to their families.

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"The situation is desperate," he said Tuesday. "We cannot continue functioning in the Starr County Memorial Hospital nor in our county in the way that things are going. The numbers are staggering."

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Vasquez said the county sends coronavirus patients daily to other parts of Texas and to other states, but that hospitals in both Texas and nearby states were now overwhelmed.

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He added that for some patients, "We believe they will be better taken care in the love of their own family and home rather than thousands of miles away dying alone," CBS News reported.

Starr County had successfully fought the coronavirus in the early days of the pandemic.

But Vasquez said cases started to increase "in an exponential and alarming way" after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott decided to reopen the state from late April, CBS News reported.

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