{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"KZYX News","title":"Local Doctors Sound the Alarm on Covid","html":"<iframe width=\"100%\" height=\"180\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless src=\"https://share.transistor.fm/e/7f3ed1f5\"></iframe>","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":389,"description":"August 27, 2021\r\nBy Alicia Bales\r\n\r\nToday, as the surge in Covid 19 infections has filled our hospitals to capacity, and reports of deaths from the virus are becoming a daily occurrence, dozens of local doctors and medical providers have signed a letter addressed to the community of Mendocino County asking for help. The letter describes the dire conditions healthcare providers are seeing at work every day: emergency departments overflowing, full ICUs, and a surge of sick young patients with covid-19. The doctors are urging Mendocino County residents to stem the tide of new infections by getting vaccinated.\r\n\r\nDr. Erica Valdovinos and Dr. Drew Colfax are two of the doctors who signed on to the letter.\r\n\r\nHere is the Text of the Letter:\r\n\r\nDear Mendocino County Community,\r\n\r\nWe are a group of doctors and medical providers living and working in Mendocino County. We need your help. Like all of you, we are heartbroken at the number of lives and livelihoods the COVID-19 pandemic has taken. COVID-19 has proven difficult to control, and this pandemic feels unrelenting to all of us, as healthcare providers and as members of the community.  \r\n\r\nWe work in the emergency departments at Ukiah Valley, Howard Memorial and Mendocino Coast Hospitals, in the inpatient units, the intensive care units, and the clinics in the community. Every day, we take care of more and more patients who are sick with COVID-19. The great majority of hospitalized patients are unvaccinated. Our emergency departments are overflowing. Our hospitals are full. Our ICUs are full. We struggle to find hospital beds even for the patients who are coming to the emergency department with strokes, heart attacks, or appendicitis. When patients need services that our hospitals cannot provide, we struggle to transfer them, and have become used to hearing the phrase “there are no hospital beds in all of Northern California.” We repeat this sentence to our patients, to their worried family members. Never before have...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/xZpAumwbhFUpJUYcwaQ1-q6snzOyqAm13l7cW6AWPCM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMzkz/NjAwNjc2OWMyZmFk/YWY2YTdmYjI5M2Mz/YWMxNy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}