Aside from the COVID-19 pandemic, people aren’t any healthier now than, say, at this time last year. But due to the virus and efforts to slow its spread, you might think so.
Area hospitals have seen a drop in people seeking medical care in emergency rooms for fear of infection. At Ascension Seton in Kyle, ER visits had dropped by 60 percent at one point, according to Dr. Christopher Zieball,
medical director of the emergency department at Dell Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas.
“People have been delaying coming in for chest pains and end up sitting home having heart attacks,” he said. In a Thursday phone interview with the Hays Free Press, he said he saw a patient Wednesday “with stroke symptoms that started on Saturday.”
Both heart attacks and strokes require immediate treatment that “can completely reverse the process,” Zieball said, while delays in seeking treatment can have lifelong consequences. “People are going to have a lifelong disability for fear of getting a germ we’re not gonna let them catch.”
While there are freestanding ER and Urgent Care options now, Zieball stressed that there are certain symptoms
and conditions that very much warrant a visit to a traditional ER. Abdominal pain, for example. “It could be appendicitis or gall bladder,” he said, “serious conditions needing an operation today.”
Wound infections can also develop and become serious. “A gal yesterday had just a horrible wound infection from a cut on her knee. She had put off coming in because she was worried” about the coronavirus.
Zieball said the ER has stringent protocols for sanitation and safety. “This environment is about as clean as anywhere you can go right now. It’s cleaner than the grocery store or the liquor store … We’re not going to
put anybody in danger of catching a germ.”
Early in the pandemic, Zieball said emergency departments tried to steer people from coming in for issues that were not urgent, for example medication refill, but never intended for people to stay away if they were acutely sick.
“If you are vomiting with diarrhea and feel you’re dehydrated, if you have neurological symptoms or shortness of
breath, get in your car if you are able to or call 911. Come into the ER to be seen.”
Though the pandemic has put a strain on local hospitals, Zieball said that the Seton organization has supported its employees. Some have been furloughed with pay but there have been no terminations. Zieball said he’s “not aware of anybody whose job has been at risk.”
Elective surgeries are now being phased back in, but during the time they were not being performed, personnel
who would have been in the operating room were moved to other departments and tasks.
Now that some workplaces are reopening, Zieball said he expects the ER will begin to get busier. But, he noted, social distancing has kept more than COVID-19 at bay. “It brought an end to flu season and nobody is getting
sick at church picnics.”
With that said, “COVID-19 hasn’t peaked in this community,” he reiterated.
