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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPatients with heart attacks, strokes and even appendicitis vanish from hospitals
Soon after he repurposed his 60-bed cardiac unit to accommodate covid-19 patients, Mount Sinai cardiovascular surgeon John Puskas was stumped: With nearly all the beds now occupied by victims of the novel coronavirus, where had all the heart patients gone? Even those left almost speechless by crushing chest pain werent coming through the ER.
Variations on that question have puzzled clinicians not only in New York, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, but across the country and in Spain, the United Kingdom and China. Five weeks into a nationwide coronavirus lockdown, many doctors believe the pandemic has produced a silent sub-epidemic of people who need care at hospitals but dare not come in. They include people with inflamed appendixes, infected gall bladders and bowel obstructions, and more ominously, chest pains and stroke symptoms, according to these physicians and early research.
Everybody is frightened to come to the ER, Puskas said.
Some doctors worry that illness and mortality from unaddressed health issues may rival the carnage produced by the virus in regions less affected by covid-19. And some expect they will soon see patients who have dangerously delayed seeking care as ongoing symptoms force them to overcome their fear.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/patients-with-heart-attacks-strokes-and-even-appendicitis-vanish-from-hospitals/ar-BB12SZBY?li=BBnb7Kz
Phoenix61
(17,023 posts)with underlying conditions Id bet a lot of those folks are in the hospital for covid-19.
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,543 posts)Xolodno
(6,410 posts)Good news is, probably caught it in time. Having surgery soon...what was alarming, normally after the surgery you would be in the hospital for a few days. She was told they will try to release her the very next day due to the virus and give her instructions on recuperating at home.
We live close, so we're going to be helping out with a lot of things....probably one silver lining about this plague, working from home enables us to help others.
I_UndergroundPanther
(12,496 posts)Happy my sister got her appendix out ,she got there in time. I was scared she might have gotten covid,and so was she,but she listened to her doctor.
totodeinhere
(13,059 posts)n/t
RobinA
(9,903 posts)of two people who need a hospital but have been told, Sorry, cant do it because of Corona. One needs his gall bladder out due to gallstones but has been sitting around home in pain because they cant operate. Another has a post-surgical infection and they are giving antibiotics, but same deal. Sorry, Corona. She cant heal because its infected.
EllieBC
(3,045 posts)I was on the wait list for 6 months. Then they called to tell me the wait list was suspended.
We have less than 200 people hospitalized in BC for COVID-19. Yet theyve cancelled all sorts of surgeries including ones for cancer.