The video above from a story showing what it's like inside Parkland Hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Federal help is being sent to two hospitals in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to bolster staffing as COVID-19 hospitalizations rise.
Hospitals can request relief workers for doctors, nurses and staff experiencing fatigue due to COVID-19 care.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said federal partners are sending Disaster Medical Assistance Teams to the region. One hospital in Dallas will receive staff, he said. A second hospital is also receiving staff, but WFAA is working to confirm which one.
Hospitals in the Dallas-Fort Worth region have seen COVID-19 patients more than triple since June 1, rising from 580 people to 1,704 by July 7.
Dr. John Zerwas, executive vice chancellor for health affairs of the University of Texas System, told WFAA that understaffing is "in fact the big chokepoint, if you will."
"To a large extent, we have the physical capacity or we can create the physical capacity," Zerwas said. "The big squeeze is on manpower. We are bringing a substantial amount of manpower outside the state and even mobilizing it within the state if there are people on the sidelines now who can actually contribute to providing care."
On June 24, there were 1,074 patients in the Dallas-Fort Worth trauma services, the state health department reported. Two weeks later on July 7, there were 1,704.
"The human toll of this on those that work for me, work here at this hospital cannot be overstated -- the fatigue in their voices and their faces every day," Parkland Chief Medical Officer Dr. Joseph Chang told WFAA last week. "I can't adequately describe that to you. This is real."
He encouraged people to wear face masks for themselves and for others.
On Wednesday, more than 9,600 people were hospitalized with the disease, and the Dallas-Fort Worth area saw a record number of hospitalizations at 1,809 people, according to state data.
Stephen Love, the president and CEO of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council says if the hospitalizations double within the next 10 to 20 days, there will be a strain on an already tired workforce.
There were 771 COVID-19 patients in Dallas County as of the latest data reported on Tuesday.
Within a 24 hour period ending July 7, emergency room visits spiked from 200 to 786 for people with coronavirus-related symptoms, Dallas County Health and Human Services reported. That represents 35% of all emergency department visits, DCHHS said.
"These numbers continue to put tremendous strain on our health care facilities and providers," Dallas County Health and Human Services said in a statement.
