Emergency room doctors at United Regional Health Care System aren't twiddling their thumbs waiting on patients to walk through the doors, but the number of patients seeking emergency care has fallen considerably since COVID-19 spread in Wichita Falls.
Dr. Evan Meyer, an emergency room physician for seven years, has noticed the decline and expressed concern.
"We have seen a sizable decrease since the pandemic," Meyer said.
"Before COVID-19, (United Regional's emergency room) would average about 220 patients a day," he said. "And while the numbers dropped considerably to about 120 patients in the early days, we're still only up around 170."
The drop in the number of patients is alarming, Meyer said, because individuals avoiding the emergency room are delaying or, worse, permanently altering the success of effective treatments.
"A lot of people who may have a life-threatening condition aren’t coming in," Meyer said.
"I’ve seen people with stroke symptoms come in two days later, and that delays administering necessary blood-clotting drugs," he said. "I had a patient who suffered through heart attack symptoms for a week before coming into the ER. Treatments we could have prescribed early on were delayed."
Meyer also recalled a patient who broke a bone in his hand and did not visit the ER until after the bone had tried to heal on its own.
"We could no longer reset the bone in the ER," he said. "Surgery was needed."
Fortunately, Wichita Falls has not experienced what New York suffered in the early days of the pandemic, Meyer added, when deaths at home rose at an alarming rate as individuals succumbed to ailments and injuries that could have been treated had the person sought emergency care.
Fear of the known and the unknown drive the decrease in emergency visits, he said.
"Unfortunately, people are very afraid of this virus," said Meyer, the son of a physician. "And it is a novel virus, so we don’t know everything there is to know about it."
United Regional does take every possible precaution to keep patients safe while seeking treatment.
"We segregate patients who have symptoms, and there are a lot of symptoms with this virus, so that involves a lot of patients," he said. "Patients and families all wear masks, so the transmission rate would be low."
In addition to taking the temperature of those who come into the ER, health care professionals also limit the number of people who come and go, only allowing one visitor back to the exam room at a time, unless there are extenuating circumstances, he said.
"And we do a good job of getting people back to a room quickly," Meyer said. "There aren't a lot of patients in the waiting room."
Still, he fears people needing emergency care are avoiding the hospital and thus affecting the success of certain protocols.
"We do everything we can," he said.
But for ailments such as strokes and heart attacks, treatment windows to prevent death or fix the issue are short, Meyer said.
For example, when someone comes in complaining of heart attack symptoms, an electrocardiogram would preferably be prescribed within 15 minutes of a patient's arrival, he added.
"I don’t want people to feel they have to choose between avoiding COVID-19 and getting treated," Meyer said. "They need to come to the ER so we can fix them, especially when we are taking every possible precaution."
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