As coronavirus hospitalizations hit a record peak April 19, hospitals are overwhelmed by not only COVID unit patients, but delayed care patients as well.
Delayed care refers to those who did not seek routine medical attention during the pandemic, meaning their health conditions worsened or they fell behind on routine vaccinations.
For some who waited to get medical attention for conditions like chest pain, it was fatal, said Dr. Mark Hamed, a practicing physician and the health director for Huron, Lapeer , Sanilac, Tuscola and District Health Department #2.
Hamed is also the medical director for several departments in the McKenzie Health System.
RELATED: Michigan reports new record hospitalization number, surpassing April 2020 peak
Delayed care is in part due to previous shutdowns, when patients were told to avoid the doctor’s office, said Dr. Pamela Rockwell, a practicing Michigan Medicine physician and member of the Michigan Academy of Family Physicians (MAFP).
However, now that patients are becoming more willing to go to the doctor for routine medical care, some practices, like Rockwell’s can struggle to have have enough in-person appointments available.
“Because of the pandemic and the social distancing rules, we don’t have as many physicians in person at the office at one time as we used to, so that limits in person visits,” Rockwell said.
This doesn’t mean physicians are working less, they are working more through telemedicine, Rockwell said. But telemedicine has limitations, despite growing to adapt to the pandemic. For those with urgent needs or recurrent health problems, telemedicine can lack in needed screenings, as well as be a hinderance to those without broadband access.
Telemedicine also cannot overcome declines in routine vaccinations.
The I Vaccinate campaign recently reported routine vaccination rates among Michigan children 19 months to 3 years are below 70% in more than half the state.
RELATED: Routine vaccinations drop for children, Michigan doctors urge parents to catch up
Routine vaccinations for adults also dropped, according to a February study on Medicare recipients by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While some doctors put off routine vaccinations due to upcoming coronavirus vaccine appointments, Rockwell encourages those who are fully vaccinated and waited the two week period to make an appointment with their doctor to catch up.
A drop in preventable disease vaccinations concerns doctors as the state looks to reopen. As the pandemic phases out, the public health system could be looking at an epidemic of preventable diseases if patients do not catch themselves and their children up on routine vaccines, Hamed said.
“People can’t be lax on routine vaccinations (and) routine primary care or else... they’ll fall back and I mean, the COVID will be the least of their concerns,” Hamed said. “We’re looking at outbreaks of measles and other preventable diseases like meningitis.”
Those who are forgoing routine health maintenance like mammograms, cervical or colon cancer screenings and blood pressure monitoring, risk health issues not being caught, Rockwell said.
“I’ve already seen that with one of my patients who did not have a mammogram last year and actually showed up with a breast lump and it was cancerous,” Rockwell said.
For many of these screenings, a telemedicine appointment would allow a primary care physician to order the tests, Rockwell said. Otherwise, people face later diagnoses, which are often more difficult to treat and require longer stays in the hospital.
RELATED: Delayed care and surge in coronavirus cases overwhelms Michigan hospitals for a third round
McLaren hospitals have also seen later diagnoses that can be more difficult to treat, said Magen Samyn, regional vice president of marketing and business development for McLaren Bay, Caro and Thumb regions.
Samyn wants people to know it is always a safe time to receive care as hospitals have procedures in place to keep it that way. This includes separating non-COVID patients from those with coronavirus.
“It’s important people receive the care they need when they need it, to ensure that something catastrophic doesn’t happen with a stroke or a heart attack when they’re not getting the preventative care that they need,” Samyn said.
“And then cancer adds a whole other level because cancer doesn’t wait for COVID.”
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