The fast-spreading wildfires that have transformed much of Los Angeles County into a raging inferno landscape are not only upending the lives of tens of thousands of residents and business owners, but also stressing the county’s hospitals, health clinics, first responders and nursing homes. area.
At least one medical clinic burned down. Elderly patients were evacuated by ambulance from nursing facilities as embers swirled around them and their caregivers. Clinics have been closed and routine appointments have been cancelled. Some providers lost their homes or were forced to evacuate their neighborhoods, preventing them from working in many cases and making it a challenge for some health care centers to maintain adequate staffing.
Amidst the maelstrom, doctors, nurses and other caregivers went about their work.
On Tuesday night, Ravi Salgia, an oncologist at City of Hope Duarte Cancer Center, saw the house above his Eaton Canyon home on fire. As debris and sparks fell, he, his wife and their oldest daughter estimated they had no more than seven minutes to get out. In the middle of the night, Salya received a call that the hospital had become an emergency command center and was in danger of being evacuated, meaning he had to help assess patients and make discharge preparations.
Salya arrived at the hospital at 2:30 am on Wednesday. He was joined by colleagues, many of whom had also evacuated their homes.
“We all felt very strongly that we needed to take care of our patients — no matter what was happening to us physically and emotionally, what was happening in our homes — that we needed to make sure that the people we served were taken care of,” Salgia said in an interview.
He doesn’t know if his house is still standing.
In Pacific Palisades, St. John’s Physician Partners, a primary care and pediatrics clinic affiliated with Providence Health & Services, burned, said Patricia Aidem, a spokeswoman for the large Catholic hospital chain based in Renton, Washington.
Not far from the eastern edge of the Palisades Fire, the Providence St. Health Center. would be displaced, Aidem said. USC Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale also faced a possible evacuation, along with other hospitals in the area.
“All hospitals near the fires remain on alert and are prepared to evacuate if conditions worsen,” the Southern California Hospital Association said in a statement. “The fires are creating significant operational disruptions,” the association added.
The association also said emergency services have been strained by the high volume of calls, while road closures have prevented the transport of patients, supplies and health workers. Some health facilities have been affected by power outages, the union said, while “many staff members are directly affected by fire-related evacuations and disruptions, further complicating operations.”
The California Department of Health Management on Thursday ordered health plans to ensure enrollees affected by the wildfires have access to all necessary medical services, including prescription drug refills.
Aidem said some doctors and other health workers at Providence St. John’s in Santa Monica and Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the San Fernando Valley have lost their homes or been evacuated, putting them out of business and creating challenges to ensure adequate staffing.
Hospitals across the county said emergency rooms were treating patients for burns, smoke inhalation and eye irritation.
More than 700 people — and possibly many more — have been evacuated from nursing homes and other care facilities, according to the California Department of Public Health.
On Wednesday, the West Valley Health Center, operated by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, was closed due to a power outage, the department said. And UCLA Health said the closure of some of its clinics in Pasadena and the Westside of Los Angeles was due in part to “utility disruptions.”
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles said two of its specialty care clinics, in Encino and Santa Monica, were closed Thursday “due to the effects of the storm, power outages and fires.”
Providence also closed several clinics this week.
The two largest fires, the Palisades Fire in the parched coastal hills of west LA County and the Eaton Fire on the Eastside, have scorched more than 50 square miles, burned thousands of structures, reduced beloved cultural landmarks to ashes, killed at least 10 people and seriously injured many others.
The monster winds that fueled the wildfires on Tuesday and Wednesday have begun to subside, although significant gusts are expected to further complicate the work of firefighters for the next few days.
Regular medical care will likely be disrupted for thousands in the coming days.
Kaiser Permanente, the giant HMO and medical services provider, said it closed several medical facilities Thursday because of the fires, including a pharmacy and a lab and an eye clinic.
Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, near the Eaton fire, said some of its outpatient clinics were affected by evacuation notices and heavy smoke.
Dignity Health, another large health system, said some of its hospitals were running on generator power because of the high winds and some, including Glendale Memorial Hospital, had canceled elective surgeries. Other hospitals, including USC Verdugo Hills and Providence St. John’s, temporarily halted non-emergency surgeries due to the effects of the wildfires.
Christine Kirmsse, a registered nurse, evacuated her Santa Monica home Wednesday night and is staying at a hotel an hour away. But she said she feels strongly that she needs to come to work.
“There’s obviously so much help that’s needed,” Kirmsse said. “And it’s important to me because I have the skills to be able to help. In times like this, that’s when the community is the strongest.”
KFF Health News’ Chaseedaw Giles and Tarena Lofton contributed to this report.
This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.
