Covid Conspiracies | Opinion
There are conspiracies afoot. I have an extended family member who believes hospitals are lying about how many COVID patients they have. There is a hospital in Utah who recently had people trying to sneak in to film their ICUs to “prove” they aren’t really full. That hospital now has to dedicate resources to protect their nurses’ and patients’ privacy.
I hope my emails give you confidence you are hearing straight talk from someone working inside the hospital every day. I can’t think of a reason a hospital would be motivated to lie about how many COVID patients they have, and I certainly have no motivation to do so. I wouldn’t mind if this virus passed over us tonight and we got back to normal in the morning.
Here are a few updates for you:
UNPRECEDENTED NUMBERS
Our hospital is near full right now. Greater than 60% of those admitted are positive for COVID. I have been here for over 3 years and have not seen our hospital this consistently full before. We are talking daily about strategies to find additional staff. We are working with nearby hospitals to see how we can help them and they help us. And we’re trying to cheer on our staff all along the way.
MEETING TESTING DEMAND
We used to have a COVID phone number people could call, but we’ve switched to an online symptom tracker that may be helpful for your team members. By far the fastest and easiest way to get an order for a COVID test is to call your primary care doctor who can get an order put in for you pretty quickly. But if that is a barrier for you, try this website: www.intermountain.com/covidtest This online tool will allow patient to create a self-referral (if qualifies for a COVID order) and an arrival time to go to curbside will be provided to them.
HOSPITALIZATIONS
This graph is from the state’s website. It is easy to navigate if you haven’t had a chance to check it out: https://coronavirus.idaho.gov/
Benjamin S. Smalley, FACHE
Administrator | IntermountainCassiaRegionalHospital
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