Doctor Is In by Dr. Adil Manzoor OP/ED
We all know what the coronavirus is capable of doing on its own. I mean, 570,000 deaths, 32 million cases, and billions of affected lives is strong enough resume. But it goes far beyond that. The coronavirus, aside from sending people to the hospital, is also keeping people away from the hospital. Weird virus.
In recent months, the number of visits to hospitals is increasing. That alone isn’t news, but it gets interesting when you consider that many of these visits are by vaccinated people. So, the visits are not because of the coronavirus. Then what? Many of these vaccinated people are in hospitals because of medical conditions they haven’t been treated for because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Last year saw many facilities shut down or radically change how they are managed, from schools to churches to hospitals. While hospitals and many other healthcare facilities did not shut down, priority was placed on the coronavirus, leaving other dangerous medical conditions to worsen.
I remember many people running from hospitals because of the fear of getting the coronavirus. I can’t blame them; the havoc the virus can wreak is really not to be underestimated. Some others even visited hospitals but got sent back or met long queues and just went back.
While this all sounds basic, the effects go far deeper than one may imagine. For one, many of the people that couldn’t get the healthcare they desired because of the virus have deteriorative conditions. This implies that their conditions gradually got worse with time because of the coronavirus despite not necessarily having the coronavirus.
Some of these conditions, like cancer and diabetes, are best treated in the early stages. The longer it persists, the worse it becomes to treat or manage. Aside from treatment, early diagnosis is also important in these conditions, which was very difficult or impossible in many hospitals.
I know there are many things wrong with our healthcare system, but I don’t think you can blame the state of our healthcare system for this. You can’t blame the doctors, or the nurses, or any healthcare worker for this. How could you? Beds were literally lining up with corpses. In some hospitals, they had to turn back COVID patients because of a lack of facilities or staffing. And this was absolutely necessary.
The coronavirus is a very infectious disease. Although the death rate is not ridiculously high, standing at around 3%, more cases will mean more deaths. If one million people get the virus, at a 3% death rate, 30,000 people will die. If ten million people get the virus, though, 300,000 people will die. The point I’m trying to make is that the decision to prioritize coronavirus cases was the right one to prevent more cases and deaths.
This decision has, however, taken its toll on other conditions
