Doctor at Harlingen hospital gives inside look at intensive care unit
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A doctor overseeing the intensive care units at a Harlingen hospital is giving an inside look at the harsh reality medical workers are facing as COVID-19 cases rise.
Dr. Jamil Madi, medical director of ICU at Valley Baptist Medical Center Harlingen, said that even though they are not at capacity with COVID-19 patients at their ICU’s, the reality of what they’re seeing within the unvaccinated continues to be grim.
“I don't know which ones will live and which ones will die,” Dr. Madi said. “And there's going to be death, unfortunately.”
RELATED: Young, unvaccinated COVID-19 patients in Cameron County hospitals, health authority says
It’s a challenge that’s beginning to look more and more like 2020: cases in Cameron County and the Rio Grande Valley as a whole continuing to rise.
“The problem is, most of the public does not live in the hospital,” Dr. Madi said. “They don't understand what's going on with the hospital.”
Dr. Madi paints a picture of exhausted hospital workers and unvaccinated patients beginning to fill available beds. He says about four recent patients in the ICU were people in their 30s and early 40s, all of them gasping for air.
READ ALSO: Cameron County leaders continue push for COVID-19 vaccines, ask public to mask up
“They were all fearful for their lives, they all didn't want to die," Dr. Madi said "And invariably, they were all unvaccinated. These are the kinds of patients that we're seeing.”
There are some breakthrough COVID-19 cases of the vaccinated. Dr. Madi estimates it’s about 1 in 30 of their patients, but states even then, the severity of vaccinated patients is vastly lower than those who have not had their shots.
“Our greatest weapon of all is vaccinations,” Dr. Madi said. “If we are to apply all these adequately and consistently, we can win this war.”
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