Conditions at the Doctors Hospital Renaissance (DHR) COVID-19 ward in Edinburg, Texas, are dire, according to several alleged nurse whistleblowers who claim that the facility is infested with insects and is not properly climate controlled.
In some of the worst rooms, deceased patients have ants crawling all over their "bodies and faces," these nurses claim. And rather than be properly air-conditioned, these corpse holding areas are warm and nasty.
Someone by the name of "Sarah" who claims to be a nurse, but who does not actually work at DHR, posted photos to Twitter showing rooms crowded with empty hospital beds. These images, she says, were sent to her by staff who do work at DHR but are supposedly too scared to speak out about what they claim to be witnessing.
Despite all of the beds being empty in this series of photos, along with visible imagery depicting hospital supplies on shelves not being used, the nurses who are said to have taken these images claim that there are not enough supplies available to care for every patient.
According to the Daily Mail Online, "old-fashioned" oxygen tanks that are very heavy are having to be "split between two patients" because there are not enough of them. Having to lug around these oxygen tanks is also said to be breaking the "backs and bodies" of the nurses lugging them around.
In one instance, a nurse claims that she is having to look after 117 patients all by herself, with only 17 ventilators to divvy out between all of them. There is also said to be a shortage of PPE (personal protective equipment) gowns at DHR, with nurses being limited to just one gown per day.
Hidalgo County judge describes local hospital conditions as "war zones"
Perhaps the most disturbing claim of all, and one that cannot be proven at this point, is that the DHR facility does not have rooms that are properly refrigerated to handle the dead bodies that are said to be stored.
According to "Sarah," who put up an image of herself wearing a black-and-white striped face mask with one eye showing, some patients at DHR are being left in warm rooms to die, and afterwards their bodies are being attacked by ants "crawling on their bodies and faces."
There are no available images of this, but "Sarah" says that hospital administrators have been told about it, and that they are claiming that the ants are "coming from the patient," and not the other way around.
A staffing company known as Krucial is said to have supplied many of these nurses who are now having to work under such conditions. And based on information shown in a screenshot that "Sarah" took of an alleged text message, the company has warned its nurses not to speak to the media about anything taking place at DHR or else they will be fired.
The New York Times claims to have visited this facility recently and observed lots of patients being hospitalized there. But the paper says that nobody told it about the inhumane conditions described by these nurses, the implication being that the Times did not witness any of it first-hand.
"We've got to lasso this virus, this stallion, bring the numbers back down and get control of this thing," said Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez in a recent statement.
"Because our hospitals – they're war zones, they are really struggling right now," he added.
When the Daily Mail Online reportedly attempted to reach out to DHR for comment about these allegations, it did not immediately respond.
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