LEXINGTON (LEX 18) — The UK HealthCare Emergency Medicine physicians are urging patients not to delay or be fearful of emergency care.
Friday afternoon, physicians discussed the steps they have taken to make sure patients feel comfortable if they happen to need emergency care amid the coronavirus pandemic.
To help mitigate both patient and staff exposure to possible COVID-19 patients, UK HealthCare has basically created two emergency departments -- one for non-COVID patients and one for COVID suspected patients.
"Our biggest concern is that our patients are not showing up," said Dr. Daniel Moore, assistant medical director of Emergency Medicine. "As of two days ago, our volume from 2016-2018, through April, we had seen about 5,000 patients predictably year after year, and about 700 critically ill patients during that same time, year after year."
"As of this month, we have only seen 400 critically ill patients," Moore added, also saying people are not leaving their homes to receive critical care.
If patients are having chest pains, abdominal pains, stroke-like symptoms, etc., physicians are urging you to check in to the hospital for evaluation.
They assure to patients that their process is safe and and will not put them at risk for getting COVID-19 if they come in to get evaluated.
"Our nurses have done a phenomenal just segmenting the flow to possible COVID patients, and patients who don't have any of the symptoms," said Moore.
"The patients that have positive COVID are in the back being taken care of by a group of nurses and doctors that are in an isolated area, so the possible infection is not moving location to location. We are emphasizing the safety of our staff as well," Moore added.
