If it is the same situation where we are at... our hospitals were basically empty or had just a fraction of the beds filled after the “pandemic” started. A lot of nurses and hospital staff were laid off. People were afraid to go to the hospital and put off “elective” medical procedures like cancer treatment, heart procedures, dialyses, and the like. They did not lose money “caring for COVID-19 patients” as the article states. They lost money because they did not have enough paying customers.
You nailed it. My wife and I are prime examples:
I had a hammertoe (2nd toe on right foot) that needed to be removed as it was creating problems of balance and walking. The original scheduled loping was April after the crud hit. I finally got it down that fall. That led to less walking and getting out of shape.
My wife’s cataract replacement lenses needed to be laser blasted to clean off the collected crude. She finally got that done early this year in the outpatient clinic of the same POP, we use.
Her left hip is causing her a lot of pain. She finally got a cortisone shot in her L 3 area. That relief has worn off, She probably needs a hip replacement, when they start doing them again. Xrays were ordered before her procedure. So now we/she are probably in the waiting cycle.
Two relatives in the midwest had severe problems after not being able to see their doctors for their regular checkups.
Another relative, a male had a severe stroke in March and is doing okay now.
The other relative/a she developed Adult onset Leukemia.
That was diagnosed due to a good family IM listening to her complaining about shortness of breath and the standard blood tests were finally ordered showing the onset. She was close to a year behind her yearly visit and tests.
So, how many people are like the 4 of us re not being able to see our doctors during the pandemic with known problems and the unknown Leukemia onset.
I’m here in central California and right now we are playing catch up. Lots of people had “elective” procedures cancelled or postponed and now there’s a backlog.
When we restarted doing surgeries, only ambulatory procedures were scheduled, all admissions had to be approved by the head of surgery. Those were generally cancer cases. We started fast racking our fledgling same day discharge total joint replacement program. Yes, you read that right, total hip and knee replacements are being discharged same day. Of course, these are screened for appropriateness, and we do have to admit some who can’t pass pt or need pain control. But the number of major surgeries we are doing that are planned for same day discharge is increasing. We have only in the last month or so started to increase our planned surgery admissions approaching pregnancy covid volumes