Chattanooga’s three major hospitals are starting to open up along with the economy, officials said Friday.
All three hospitals have begun to allow elective surgeries again, and each of them want to let the public know that hospitals are a safe place to be. If one is not feeling well, then they should go to the hospital in order to get treatment, and not fear a COVID-19 infection. That is their message.
“We do feel that the hospital is a safe place to go when care is needed,” said Parkridge’s Tim Grant. “Safety precautions that we have in place have been successful and we want to encourage patients to seek care when it is needed.”
“We hear stories of patients waiting what we feel is too long to seek care because of fear and anxiety around COVID-19. We want to try to get that message out to allay those fears, if at all possible.”
Another Parkridge representative went through some of the measures being taken in order to ensure safety at the hospital. While visitors are allowed, only vital people needed for the hospital to function are usually allowed inside. At those entrances, temperatures are checked, and any person with a fever is not allowed inside.
CHI Memorial’s Dr. Matt Kodsi said the decreasing number of available ICU beds has nothing to do with the recent increase in COVID-19 over the last two days.
“We can hope that if those are filling up, it’s because those who needed care are finally coming in,” said Dr. Kodsi. “It’s unfortunate that at the point they needed care they needed ICU-level care, where as it was pointed out earlier, if they’d come in sooner, they might have been able to receive a lower level of care.”
Dr. James Sizemore of Erlanger said that while positive COVID-19 cases have been increasing, this does not qualify as a surge. He said that the increasing numbers are most likely a byproduct of increased community testing around Hamilton County.
“I would say that we are not in a surge,” said Dr. Sizemore. “A surge is when we would see dramatic increases in those who are severely ill and coming to the hospital.”
Another question centered around the scenario that a patient tests positive for COVID-19. What would happen to that patient? The hospitals are in agreement that if the surgery being performed is elective, then it will be postponed until the patient is no longer COVID-positive. If the surgery is crucial, then the procedure will take place, with precautions be taken alongside it.
“If it’s an elective surgery, not an emergency, then it is re-evaluated as to the timing necessity of that procedure,” said a doctor from Erlanger. “If you can wait and get the patient through any symptoms or even if they’re asymptomatic and hold off on surgeries until they’ve gone through the 10- for 14-day period, then you would do that.”
None of the three hospitals say there are any examples of nurses or hospital staff receiving coronavirus from infected patients.
“We do not have any cases where there is a passage of coronavirus from a patient to a staff member within the units where it has been clearly been focused that all they do is take care of patients are either being suspected of having the virus or have been found to have the virus,” said Memorial’s Dr. Kodsi.