An emergency room doctor is sounding the alarm about how hospitals are already being overwhelmed by coronavirus cases, even though the worst of the virus is yet to come.
Writing in the Washington Post, emergency room physician Michelle Romeo says that the coronavirus crisis is unlike anything she and her colleagues have ever faced.
"My colleagues and I are used to reacting in a crisis, working long hours and making life and death decisions -- that’s our job," she writes. "But the coronavirus crisis is a different kind of test: Every shift is different; guidance is coming in from every direction; in some cases, we’re watching people die in front of us; we yearn to be at work, but we’re also trying to keep ourselves alive."
She then explains that her hospital is still being hampered by a lack of testing kits, even though they are being flooded with patients who are showing all the symptoms of the disease.
Because of this, she says, she's forced to have wrenching conversations with people who bring their sick friends and relatives into her hospital.
"I ask them to assume they are infected with covid-19, though I have no way of verifying that," she writes. "They ask for tests, which I still can’t get. I tell them to stay at home and give them strict instructions about when they can come back to the hospital. Finally, I have to tell them there is absolutely no way they can visit their critically ill loved one right now."
