Houston Private ER Tells COVID-19 Patient He Could Be Sent Out of State
One Houston resident with COVID-19 was told on Friday by the private emergency room facility he visited that if he needed to be hospitalized, he could possibly be sent out of state due to limited local hospital bed capacity, the Houston Press has learned.
The patient in question, who requested to be referred to by the pseudonym Clark to protect his identity, visited the SignatureCare Emergency Center facility at 1925 East T C Jester Boulevard on Friday afternoon due to a high fever, fatigue, a heavy cough and breathing trouble. Clark said he received a rapid COVID-19 test, which came back positive 30 minutes later. He then spoke to a doctor who told him that they recently had to send a COVID-19 patient across the state to be hospitalized, but there was a chance he might need to be sent even further away.
“The doctor had said something like ‘If we have to send you to a hospital, our last patient we just sent, it took us 10 hours to get them into a hospital in Austin, TX. Now with the way we’re set up, we would have to send you out of state,’” Clark explained.
He was shocked upon hearing the news. “I said 'Oh hell no, I’m not going out of state to die,'” Clark said.
Read more: https://www.houstonpress.com/news/covid-19-patient-told-he-could-be-sent-out-of-state-11480555
