Patients with heart attacks, strokes and even appendicitis vanish from hospitals

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

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 weren’t 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]

1. Since covid-19 is especially serious for those

with underlying conditions I’d bet a lot of those folks are in the hospital for covid-19.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

2. Very early lock-down, test and trace would have alleviated much of that.

[Xolodno]

3. Relative of mine has cancer.

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]

4. I am very

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]

5. That makes a lot of sense. I know I sure would not want to go to an ER right now.

n/t

[RobinA]

6. I Know

of two people who need a hospital but have been told, Sorry, can’t do it because of Corona. One needs his gall bladder out due to gallstones but has been sitting around home in pain because they can’t operate. Another has a post-surgical infection and they are giving antibiotics, but same deal. Sorry, Corona. She can’t heal because it’s infected.

[EllieBC]

7. My gallbladder surgery was cancelled.

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 they’ve cancelled all sorts of surgeries including ones for cancer.