Louisiana's health care system nearing "major failure," says governor

“We are rapidly getting to the point where we could have a major failure of our health care delivery system,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said at a press briefing Friday. “There’s some people out there whose care is being delayed to the point where, for them, it’s already failed.”

If the latest and worst COVID surge doesn’t turn a corner within the next few weeks, Louisiana’s hospitals could reach a point where care is rationed and patients are triaged. What that means is that those with the lowest likelihood of survival would be turned away and sent to hospice care.

It’s an unimaginably grim scenario, but entirely possible given the pandemic’s current trajectory, said Dr. Joe Kanter, the state’s top public health official.

“This is not something that’s happened before. We’ve never been to a place where not one hospital, but almost every hospital in the state, is at a point where they simply can’t meet the demand that comes in,” Kanter said. “Hospitals are going to do the best that they can to save the most lives, do the most amount of good for the most people.”