Medical tents removed from UMC; patient surges to be handled at El Paso Convention Center hospital

EL PASO, Texas -- Medical mobile tents provided by the Texas Emergency Medical Task Force for triage are no longer erected outside University Medical Center.

According to a hospital spokesman, the tents located behind the hospital were taken down over the Thanksgiving weekend and moved by state officials to "another assignment."

The spokesman said the situation at UMC is currently "manageable," explaining that Covid-19 patient numbers are down "significantly" from their peak number of about 250 over the last few weeks.

When asked if that patient drop was due to an increase in deaths, UMC indicated it was primarily due an increase in the number of discharges and recoveries, "but also due to not as many overall in-patients citywide."

El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego said any overflow of patients would be sent to the makeshift hospital set up at the El Paso Convention Center downtown, which he said was "reasonable."

However, Samaniego told ABC-7 he did feel the state's move to take away the tents was a bit "premature" as he would rather be "a lot more cautious that things are going to get worse before they get better."

ABC-7 reached out to El Paso's other hospitals to see if their state tents were were also removed but have yet to receive responses.