Texas Hospital System President Warns Hospitals Are Facing “Disaster” Amid Covid Surge

Houston’s Harris Health Systems President and CEO Dr. Esmaeil Porsa warned that hospitals are facing “disaster” amid the strain of caring for a surge of Covid-19 patients as the highly infectious Delta variant continues to spread.

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“My hospitals are full … What is concerning is the rate by which our Covid-positive patients are increasing,” Porsa said on CNN’s “New Day,” noting that the hospital system has admitted the same number of Covid-19 patients that previously took months to reach during the previous surge.

“Five weeks from now, if this continues to go at the rate it is right now — and again, I emphasize that I don’t see any intervention, any mitigating interventions being put in place to try to slow this down — this will be a disaster,” he said. 

Porsa also noted that the hospital system is dealing with “a pandemic of the unvaccinated” and that 98% of the system’s Covid-19 cases since Jan. 1 have been unvaccinated patients. 

“We don’t live in isolation. This is not about personal freedom or individual choice. One person’s personal freedom should not infringe on other people’s freedom and rights to being healthy and out of the hospital. A person’s freedom to drink and drive does not negate our laws against drunk driving. Your personal freedom to smoke does not negate our ban on public smoking. Your personal freedom to wear a seat belt does not negate our seat belt laws and does not prevent parents from having to apply seat belts to their children who are unable to do so,” he said.

You can watch Porsa’s interview in the video below.

More than 10,000 Texans have been hospitalized this week alone with more than half of Texas hospitals at maximum capacity in their intensive care units.

Porsa also spoke to state legislators on Tuesday, warning them that he is frightened by the current surge and what the coming days and weeks will bring.

“If this continues, and I have no reason to believe that it will not, there is no way my hospital is going to be able to handle this. There is no way the region is going to be able to handle this,” he said. I am one of those people that always sees the glass half-full, I always see the silver lining. But I am frightened by what is coming.”

Alan Herrera

Alan is a writer, editor, and news junkie based in New York.