City manager ‘concerned’ that mobile hospital tents are now needed in Lubbock

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - Hospitalizations have been above 15 percent since October 19 and now that Lubbock hospitals have been feeling these growing effects, the City of Lubbock is working with the state to provide mobile medical tents to Covenant Health and UMC.

This extra space will be provided by the Department of Health and Human Service and a program called Blue Med Tent.

“Those hospitals aren’t just for COVID patients,” explained Jarrett Atkinson, Lubbock’s City manager, saying the tents will each be four thousand square feet.

Tents have been set up in El Paso as well. In Lubbock, a tent is currently being set up at Covenant Health and another one will be assembled on Thursday at UMC for COVID patients and non-COVID patients who need in-patient care.

Atkinson says this effort started early last week and says hospitals will organize the tents according to their needs, but explained he is concerned that Lubbock has gotten to this point.

“We are the 11th largest city in the state of Texas and we have two field hospitals on their way to town.”

A state dashboard shows numbers have never been this high, even during spikes during the middle of the summer. Atkinson says safety precautions were able to slow down the spread then and needs the public to be diligent right now.

'We know how to do this. Please. I can absolutely assure you that never in my career did I think we would be deploying field hospitals to Lubbock, Texas."

Atkinson added the tents are being pre-deployed to other cities in Texas. He hopes Lubbock does not get into the situation where more tents are needed and mentioned the city is already working with the Texas Department of Early Management to get ahead of this.

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