Leaders of Washington hospitals say visits to clinics and emergency rooms are way down because people are either afraid they’ll catch COVID-19 or because patients think the system is overrun.
In fact, hospitals have plenty of room, and on Thursday, the Washington State Hospital Association launched a campaign to discourage people from delaying care.
“Our hospitals are safe,” said Dr. Elizabeth Wako, chief medical officer at Swedish First Hill.
Dr. Wako talked about an elderly stroke victim who was afraid to come in, and said Swedish is seeing nearly a 20% drop in people getting help for stroke symptoms.
"There are real consequences to delaying care," Dr. Wako said.
Read the full article here and watch the video below.
This video originally appeared on the Kiro 7 website.
