Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Saturday that he is directing more than $42 million in emergency funding to expand California’s health care system as hospitals prepare for a flood of patients amid the coronavirus crisis.
Of this amount, the state will spend $30 million to lease two medical facilities — Seton Medical Center in Daly City and St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles, Newsom said in a statement. A total of $8.6 million will be used to purchase new ventilators, IV fusion pumps, and to refurbish existing ventilators. Additionally, the state will use $2 million to secure a contract with American Medical Response to transport patients, and $1.4 million will be used to expand capacity of the state’s public health lab.
“California is mobilizing every part of government to support our health care delivery system, its workers, and those among us who are most vulnerable to COVID-19,” Newsom said.
As of Friday evening, there were 1,224 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state and 23 deaths related to the disease, according to the California Department of Public Health.
This past week, Newsom said the state started to receive medical equipment from the Strategic National Stockpile. The emergency equipment includes the following:
358,381 N95 masks
853,730 surgical masks
162,565 face shields
132,544 surgical gowns
678 coveralls
471,941 gloves
Source Article from https://deadline.com/2020/03/gavin-newsom-directs-42-million-expand-health-care-coronavirus-1202889534/
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