How Cal Poly Rec Center is being converted into a treatment site for coronavirus patients
An ambitious project began Monday to convert the Cal Poly Recreation Center into a temporary alternative care facility in anticipation of a potential surge in coronavirus patients.
San Luis Obispo County is working with several community partners to prepare 931 beds for medical care that includes oxygenation and hydration treatment (including intravenous fluids) for patients with COVID-19.
Photos of workers installing equipment in the basketball gym appeared on the county’s Facebook page Monday. The work is planned for completion by April 8.
The county’s project won’t include intensive care unit (ICU) facilities, and patients needing more acute care will be treated at local hospitals.
The Cal Poly site will serve patients who aren’t in the most critical stages of illness, to better manage the flow of patients and prevent hospitals from being inundated.
Currently, the county has enough staffing to serve 165 patient beds at Cal Poly, which County Administrative Officer Wade Horton said would accommodate to a first potential wave of cases.
“The first thing we’re doing is installing overhead trusses so we can run oxygen lines and electricity in order to support the beds and oxygen systems,” Horton said. “We’re also making sure there are clear routes with partitions to guide people to restrooms, shower facilities. We’ll (serve) 165 people to start, and we’re laying out a facility to accommodate them.”
Horton said the county will have laundry, food and security contracts as well.
The site will be constructed in preparation to serve more than 900 patients. But volunteer staffing levels of doctors, nurses, paramedics, therapists, social workers and more are needed to increase the numbers of patients that can be served.
About 200 volunteers have signed on thus far.
Horton said that if “we need to expand it out (to serve more than 165 patients), we need more people,” Horton said.
“We are seeing seven to nine days as the length of time someone might need this added (hospital support),” said Dr. Penny Borenstein, the county’s health officer. “If someone after that first week needs to step up that level of care, there will be immediate transport from our (alternative care site) to the hospital.”
Borenstein said the care site also could be a place to serve patients who have improved after stays at the hospital.
Partners in the project include Cal Poly, RRM Design Group, Thoma Electric and Trust Automation, county officials said.
Work on the conversion of the Rec Center is being done by the county and its contractors and doesn’t involve Cal Poly or student government employees, said Cal Poly spokesman Matt Lazier, “except for limited supervision and inspection by university employees during the process of handing off the facility to the county.”
“County officials advised the university that the Rec Center uniquely fit their needs for temporarily housing overflow patients, since it is a large facility,” said Cal Poly spokesman Matt Lazier in an email. “(The Rec Center) has excellent access to water and electricity; can be accessed by public roads that do not run through other parts of campus; and primarily contains hard surfaces that are relatively easy to sanitize.”
Cal Poly students, faculty and staff won’t be in the facility while COVID-19 patients are present — “with the potential exception of limited essential trade workers to service the facility in the unlikely event of an infrastructure emergency,” Lazier said.
This story was originally published March 30, 2020 at 7:08 PM.
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