Hospitals are in trouble, too many beds are empty, revenues are therefore down and layoffs of not-busy staff impend. I’ve seen several commenters blaming Covid-19 policies for this state of affairs.
Maybe they are correct, maybe not. I’d like to propose an alternate hypothesis. The same people President Trump and VP Pence keep praising for staying home and following the guidelines are avoiding hospitals which they view as places to catch Covid-19.
I ask myself, would I enter our nearby hospital now unless I felt in imminent danger of dying? I answer that question with a clear “No.”
What would it take to get me through its doors? Answer: a suspected heart attack, stroke, or massive trauma as from a car crash or fire. Something very painful or immediately life-threatening, including suspected CoV.
What would I avoid going there for? Anything even remotely elective, say a new knee or hip replacement, a colonoscopy, any procedure I can reasonably postpone.
What we’re learning is that a surprisingly large proportion of what happens at your local hospital is other-than-acute care, procedures to make people more safe, comfortable or attractive but in some sense “elective” or perhaps a better term is “postponable.”
We’ve been told that governments or hospitals have “banned” such activities. I suspect what’s really happening is that neither elective patients nor their physicians are very willing to go to a place where people are actively sick with, and dying from, the “killer cold.”
I predict a change in “policies” won’t bring ‘em back. We may need to create facilities for plague victims separate from those for “normal” hospital activities which involve less risk of cross-contamination, of shared infection.
The problem may be one of perception, but perceptions people act upon become realities we end up having to work around. Expect also to see empty beds in long-term care facilities, for the same reasons.
