Doctors at the University of Kansas Health System today urged patients not to wait to get treatment for chronic or other conditions.
There have been reports of patients afraid to seek care for health conditions, such as heart attacks, and waiting too long to get treatment, according to Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer at the KU Health System.
He said the hospital and the home are the safest places in the city now.
Numbers of positive COVID-19 patients at the hospital have declined since last week.
Positive COVID-19 patients at KU Health System today totaled 22, with 10 patients in the intensive care unit, according to Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control at the University of Kansas Health Services. That is less than 30 or so seen last week.
In Wyandotte County, positive COVID-19 cases were reported at 1,090 at 11:55 a.m. Wednesday, with 66 deaths. It was an increase of seven cases and one more death since Tuesday morning. The number of hospitalizations was 35, an increase of one since Tuesday morning. The state of Kansas reported that Wyandotte County had 1,107 positive cases at midday Wednesday.
Kansas reported 7,468 total positive cases on Wednesday, an increase of 352 cases since Monday. There were 164 deaths reported statewide on Wednesday, an increase of six since Monday.
Dr. David Lisbon, emergency medicine physician at KU Health System, said originally there had been a decline in patients coming to the emergency room, but they are now seeing a bounceback.
Patient volume in the ER dropped almost 50 percent, he said, and he had never seen that level in 25 years or so. The numbers are starting to go back up now, and are around 120 a day as compared to the previous 180 to 190 a day, he added.
A drop in patient volume also was seen by Dr. Mary Champion, ophthalmologist, and by Dr. Mark Wiley, chair of cardiovascular medicine at KU Health Service.
They said patient numbers are starting to increase again.
Dr. Champion said it is important to get treatment to prevent vision loss. She said some patients were concerned about being in a waiting room around other patients, but procedures have changed so that the patients in her clinic now go directly from the front door to the examination room, she said. Everyone now is wearing masks in the clinic, she added. Patients’ temperature is taken and they have a questionnaire to answer.
Dr. Wiley said some patients may have put off appointments for cardiovascular care and are now starting to get back in. It’s something that can’t wait.
Dr. Lisbon said the ER had seen a number of cases of congestive heart failure, with some coming in later than they should have.
One patient who had COVID-19 was reluctant to come in to the hospital because of concerns about the hospital bill, but he eventually received treatment there, he said.
Dr. Hawkinson said the health system always has had an infection control program in place, and there is universal masking in place for health care workers and patients. Training is ongoing about personal protective equipment and proper hand hygiene, he said.
Screening is taking place by taking patients’ temperatures and answering questions as they come in.
Testing continues
Testing for COVID-19 continues today in Wyandotte County, with a free pop-up test scheduled from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the New Bethel Church and Forest Grove Baptist Church, 745 Walker Ave., Kansas City, Kansas.
On Thursday, pop-up testing is scheduled from 3 to 6 p.m. at Cross-Lines Community Outreach, 736 Shawnee Ave. Also on Thursday, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., testing will be at La Fe en Jesu Cristo, 1500 Central Ave., Swope Health.
Also, testing continues in the afternoons at the Health Department parking lot at 6th and Ann. Testing may be affected by the weather. For more testing sites and information on who may be tested, call 311 or visit https://wyandotte-county-covid-19-hub-unifiedgov.hub.arcgis.com/pages/what-to-do-if-you-think-you-have-covid-19.
To view the KU doctors’ news conference, visit https://www.facebook.com/kuhospital/videos/2556995624549735/.
More information about the “red zone” rules is online at the ReStart WyCo hub at https://wyandotte-county-covid-19-hub-unifiedgov.hub.arcgis.com/pages/restartwyco.
The ReStart WyCo plan is at https://www.wycokck.org/WycoKCK/media/Health-Department/Documents/Communicable%20Disease/COVID19/RestartWYCOGuidanceDocument043020.pdf.
Several Wyandotte County pop-up testing sites are listed at https://wyandotte-county-covid-19-hub-unifiedgov.hub.arcgis.com/pages/what-to-do-if-you-think-you-have-covid-19.
The UG’s COVID-19 webpage is at https://alpha.wycokck.org/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Information.
The Kansas COVID-19 website is at https://covid.ks.gov/.
The Kansas COVID-19 resource page is at https://govstatus.egov.com/coronavirus
Information from the CDC is at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/.