smjack1 said:

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Which hospitals in the San Antonio area are recommended? Two days ago physicians from the Methodist gave an unauthorized ( By the hospital) press conference and stated they had 20 Covid patients waiting in the ER because there were no beds available at that time. It was also stated that similar conditions existed at other ERs. We keep hearing politicians saying there are plenty of beds available in Texas, which I think is probably true. But that doesn't help if they are out of beds in areas of high cases!

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It depends on what you are going to the hospital for. If you think you are having a heart attack or stroke, call 911, they'll know where to take you. If you are going for something unrelated to COVID and believe it is a (non-cardiac) emergency, you will most quickly be seen at one of the many free standing ERs across the city. They might not have specialists immediately available if you require hospitalization; however, so you will still have to wait for a hospital to accept you, and there is still a possibility that after you are transferred you will need to wait several hours in the ER until a bed is available for you.

If your emergency is COVID related, I would first recommend that you ask yourself whether you feel this is truly an emergency. Do you have a home pulse ox monitor? If not, get one before you are having to ask yourself this question. They are on Amazon between $11-$40 for next day delivery, highly recommend you do this. If your O2 sat drops to 90% or below, go to an ER immediately. If your shortness of breath is severe enough that you can't walk more than a few steps w/o having to catch your breath, you should go to an ER. If you are short of breath and having significant confusion, another indication to go to the ER. Or if you just feel that the symptoms you are having are clearly an emergency. If any of that is the case, my recommendation is to go to the nearest fully functioning hospital rather than going to a free standing ER. Please keep in mind that a COVID+ or suspected patient puts an ambulance out of commission for at least 2 hours (30min-1hr of transport, and an additional hour to clean), so if you have someone that can take you to a hospital safely, then do that, and give the ER a call from your car to inform them that you have COVID or suspect you do.

Most hospital ERs in the city are inundated with COVID patients. I work at 3 separate hospital ERs, 3 free standings, and have access to the ER census of 3 other hospitals, all of them are about the same w/ various institution dependent differences. Main Methodist hospital has a few patients that are waiting several days to obtain hospital beds. Most other places you might be waiting up to a day or so, but this is all rapidly changing.