DETROIT _ When COVID-19 first hit metro Detroit, hospitals urged sick people to stay away.
Now they're saying come back because the original message, compounded with fears, came with a cost:
Heart attack victims died at home. Stroke patients let symptoms go unchecked for too long. Fractures from falls were left untreated and worsened.
This, doctors say, is fallout from COVID-19, a virus that has people so scared that they're letting life-threatening ailments go unchecked. Though exact data is hard to come by, hospitals across metro Detroit say emergency room visits for non-coronavirus symptoms have dropped by 50% since the shelter-in-place order went into effect six weeks ago _ a trend they are now desperate to reverse.
"We know more people are dying at home," said Dr. Robert Klever, medical director at Detroit Receiving's Emergency Department, noting the pandemic quickly emptied ERs of "traditional" patients with chest pains, pneumonia and falls. "There were a lot of people who were scared to come in. It was a legitimate fear. ... I think the whole medical community was taken aback by this."
According to Klever, before the stay-at-home order took effect, the ER at Detroit Receiving saw an average of 192 patients a day, compared with 102 a day after the quarantine started. That's almost a 50% drop.
Klever also cited ambulance statistics from over the last month, which _ based on EMS runs _ show that 27 people died at home at this time last year, compared with 147 at-home deaths this year. That's more than a fivefold increase.
"That's the collateral damage of people who are afraid to come to the emergency department," said Klever, who is especially concerned about outcomes that he stressed could have been prevented had people come to ER.
For example, Klever cited a recent heart attack victim who waited too long to call 911 and died as a result, a death that left the EMS tech shaken up.
"He was pretty upset. I told him, 'you did everything you could do.' And they really did. They gave him CPR, medication. And he said, 'After 17 years, I really have a hard time when I talk to a patient and they still pass away,'" recalled Klever, who believes EMS crews and hospital staff will long suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder from this pandemic.
"The message is this: 'We're here to help and we want to help,'" Klever said, noting Detroit Receiving's ER has been separated into COVID and COVID-free areas.
"Nobody said stay at home if you need groceries, if you need medical care. ... We want people to come in," Klever said. "You don't know what's going to happen down the line if you don't get stitches or if you think you're having a stroke."
