We have women who are laboring in the hallways
behind screens.
We're trying to provide as much privacy as we can.
We have women who are recovering from their
delivery in our recovery room,
back-to-back, stretcher-to-stretcher.
Our situation is such that everyone is doing
the very best that they can
to take care of these women, but we are truly
in a critical situation.
The nursery, high number of babies we had today
was 189 babies
in a newborn nursery that can accommodate 102.
We didn't have enough people at 12:00 midnight
last night to feed our babies.
Welcome to the Maternal Child Health Care
Department of Parkland Hospital.
It's predicted that 1,400 babies will be born
here this month alone.
We are in constant fear of that.
There's only so much these people that are
literally running around you here can do.
And it's ironic that while in some parts of the
hospital patients are literally in the hallway,
this surgical intensive care unit is vacant.
It could probably be filled in a matter of hours,
but Parkland simply doesn't have the funds
available for the necessary equipment and the
staff to run it.
The increase in county population and the
numbers of uninsured hits Parkland hard.
Hospital officials had hoped for a greater tax
increase to expand services.
Now they're faced with the challenge of simply
keeping up.
Jane Boone, Channel 5 News, Dallas.