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Health Watch: COVID-19 and emergency department hesitancy

Even after accounting for known COVID deaths, The U.S. has still seen tens of thousands more people die this year

The Covid-19 Pandemic has caused ripple effects that aren’t immediately obvious.  Back in March and April, during the first wave, one of those ripple effects is people being scared to go to hospitals for emergencies.  Doctors are hoping we won’t have that problem again with the current wave.

“It’s very important for people to understand that we can not stop seeking health care, to the extent where, and we saw what we saw during February, March, April and May months, people sat at home and didn’t seek care,” said Dr. Reggie Eadie, the President and C.E.O. of Trinity Health of New England.

Dr. Eadie said the hospitals under his umbrella, which include St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, and St. Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury, kept track of Emergency Department visits for five key medical emergencies.  Dr. Eadie said, during the peak of the first wave, visits for those five reasons collectively dropped by 50 percent, and it wasn’t because people miraculously stopped getting sick. 

“What was happening?  Where did the heart attacks go?  Where did the strokes go? The kidney failure, appendicitis?  Where did it go,” said Dr. Eadie, “well, we now know it didn’t go anywhere.  It was at home and people were suffering.”

The National Center for Health Statistics estimated that, even after accounting for known Covid deaths, The U.S. has still seen tens of thousands more people die this year than in an average year.  The reasons behind that jump aren’t clear yet, but some health experts say two of the biggest drivers may be a lot of unknown Covid deaths in March and April – people who died long before there was adequate testing to confirm their infections – and also people who died because they waited too long to get medical help for other emergencies.  

“You have to interact with health care systems because we are seeing people who have experienced delayed diagnoses and treatment and unfortunately the outcomes are not as good as they should have been,” Dr. Eadie said.

Dr. Eadie said hospitals have been taking great pains to keep Covid-positive and Covid-probable patients isolated from the moment they walk into an emergency department.     

“Most of the hospitals in the state of Connecticut - I could speak certainly for Trinity Health of New England - we have two parallel processes, we’ve got Covid and Covid-free zones so please, it’s important that, if you need medical attention, do not sit at home, come to the emergency department, go see your primary care provider,” Dr. Eadie said.

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