BALTIMORE — Home for the holidays and then heading to the hospital?
You’re not alone, and with a COVID-19, flu and RSV spike here in Maryland, hospital beds are getting harder to come by.
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Dr. Shannon Graf works as an emergency room physician at MedStar Union Memorial Hospital.
“Unfortunately, that means that on the front end, the people who are coming in either through the front door of the ER or through an ambulance bay, they may have to wait longer depending on their acuity level just because there’s no space or room to see them or there may not be any physicians or nurses to take care of them, because they already have this glut of other patients to take care of,” said Graf.
Depending upon the severity of symptoms, your age and other health risk factors, these viral illnesses all can carry similar conditions---congestion, runny nose and fevers, as well as chills, coughing and body aches.
In those cases, you may turn to self-medicating, your personal physician or urgent care centers, but there is a time when going to the emergency room may be necessary.
“Sudden changes in what we call your mental status,” said Graf. “So, in an elderly person for example, that might be confusion. In a child, that might be just completely not responding to Mom or Dad when you move them. Other things to watch out for is if your vomiting so much that you can’t take medication or that you get dehydrated.”
If you have trouble breathing, chest pains or if your finger tips are turning blue, you also should immediately head to the ER.
As we’ve learned throughout the pandemic, hand-washing, facemasks and distancing, as well as getting vaccines can better your chance of avoiding illness in the first place.
