The Fairview Developmental Center in Costa Mesa will be used as an alternative care site to help fight the surge in COVID-19 patients anticipated in California over the next few weeks, it was announced Wednesday.
The center will relieve stress on local hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic by providing beds to non-infected patients in a role similar to that of the USNS Mercy in the Port of Los Angeles.
Patients in need of low to medium levels of care will be transferred to the center from local hospitals, a news release by the California Office of Emergency Services stated.
Members of the public seeking medical care were asked not to seek admission at the center but to continue consulting with their physician.
Incorporating the center is part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to increase hospital capacity by more than 50,000 beds by the end of May.
The Fairview Developmental Center can provide up to 1,100 of those beds on its 100-plus acre campus, the Orange County Register reported.
City and county officials opposed a plan in February to use the facility as a state quarantine site for COVID-19 patients.
“We are in very different times today,” county Director of Public Health David Souleles was quoted in the Register as saying during a recent town hall on Facebook. “We are really at a point where there is community-wide transmission.”
It was unclear exactly when the center would begin taking patients.
More information on the state’s COVID-19 response can be found a www.covid19.ca.gov.
