Hospital filled with Covid-19 patients was forced to turn away emergency cancer patient [View all]
Dr. Nitesh Paryani, a third-generation radiation oncologist in Tampa, Florida, recently was forced to make a decision that he says he and his family have never had to make in 60 years of treating patients. A nearby hospital was working to transfer a cancer patient to a location that had adequate treatment options. Paryani said he regularly accepts such patients, but for the first time, could not do so due to the number of those sick from Covid-19. "We just didn't have a bed. There was simply no room in the hospital to treat the patient," he told CNN's Chris Cuomo in an interview Wednesday.
The latest Covid-19 surge, due largely to the more transmissible Delta variant, is pushing emergency rooms to the brink. Some states are reporting an overflow of ICU patients as well as staff shortages due to burnout and illness.
"We're seeing in the hospitals,
greater than 90 percent of the people that are admitted in the ICUs are unvaccinated. There is no question that the vaccine is the best option we have. It is also the cheapest option we have. It is the most effective, and there's really no reason that people should be avoiding the vaccine," he said.
"There's not a single patient that we've had to intubate because of a complication from the vaccine.
The people we're intubating, the people that are on life support,
the people that are dying are the ones that are not vaccinated."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/26/us/covid-florida-doctor-cancer-patient/index.html