As hospitals approach capacity with COVID patients, what happens if you have a life-threatening emergency?
You are in a car accident and need immediate medical attention.
You survive the ride to the hospital, but can you survive the wait to get into the ER?
City Hall Spokesperson Beau Tidwell touched on this recently.
"As you heard the Mayor say, as you've heard health leaders across the state say over and over again, this touches everyone, this is a concern for everyone."
Tidwell says all aspects of state and local government are concerned about hospital capacity and the need to care for everybody, not just COVID-19 patients who are taking up all the space at the moment.
"Beds are filling up, hospitals are filling up and we know why, it's Delta, and it's being driven largely by unvaccinated individuals."
And if that's the case you may be waiting for hours to get into a COVID clogged emergency room, or worse, need to be diverted to another hospital miles away if your emergency is serious enough.
"It is difficult to overstate the seriousness or the degree of the strain," Tidwell says bluntly. "It is currently on our healthcare system, on our healthcare workers and our first responders."
As hospitals continue to swell with COVID-19 patients, the fate of so-called lesser emergencies like heart attacks and strokes can leave those patients in a healthcare limbo.
Heart Attacks, Strokes, car accidents, even shootings requiring trips to the emergency room could find a life-threatening wait at the hospital to get treated because COVID patients are clogging the ER.
"If you're in a situation where you have an emerging health issue that needs to take you to the emergency room, there may be a wait that is much, much longer than there should be. Because beds are filled with people who chose not to take the vaccine. We need that not to happen any more, we need you to mask up. We need you to get the shot."
So as hospital's fill with COVID-19 patients, people needing everything from emergency care to elective surgery are put on hold. Overworked Hospital staff are finding their hands and beds full with people fighting the infection.
"In New Orleans Parish right now, the hospitalization rate is 10.3 people per 100,000. The statewide rate is 32.1. That means Orleans raised at a rate of one-third compared to the rest of the state. The reason for that is very simple, the reason for that is vaccination."
