Warning signs before taking COVID patient to emergency room
OXNARD, Calif. -- Ventura County hit a record high with case rate numbers, and high hospitalizations. Health experts weight in on warning signs on when to bring in loves ones to the emergency room.
“We are pretty impacted with COVID patients,” said Dr. Todd Larsen, who is the Chairman of Emergency Medicine at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard and St. John’s Pleasant Valley in Camarillo.
Dr. Larsen has witnessed the scene inside the emergency room on a daily basis.
“It has been variable with the flow of patients coming in,” said Larsen. “I think Oxnard is probably seen the worst of it within the county as our population has been mostly impacted.”
Dr. Larsen said emergency rooms are at capacity around the County, and the majority of patients coming in are COVID related. This is leaving many to wonder what warning signs to look for before taking a love one to the emergency room.
“Work of breathing, so somebody who’s respiratory rate has gone up, they have become fatigued, and they become fatigued just walking across the room, any of those signs would definitely warrant a visit to the ER,” said Larsen.
Health Care officials say emergency rooms are safe and should not be avoided or delayed in serious situations.
“We do have people separated from COVID and non COVID rooms,” said Larsen. “We are obviously doing terminal cleans in rooms. We still are seeing very sick and ill patients with heart attacks and strokes, and often times people are delaying care, and it has been very difficult because we are getting them later in their disease process than we would normally get.”
