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blogcutterApparently since the lockdown began, visits to emergency rooms are down. People with major health problems unrelated to Covid19 are hesitant to phone their doctors or a clinic (is limited walk-in service even still available?) or 911. If they do eventually seek help, they are usually in worse shape than they would have been if they had acted sooner.
With the exception of residents of retirement and long-term care homes, we may not be seeing as big a surge as we had feared in Covid19 cases. But there's a bit of a domino effect here. More people with urgent care needs. More people whose "elective" (however that's defined) surgeries and other procedures have been cancelled or postponed. More "discouraged patients" who just don't bother trying to navigate the health care system. As we start to ease restrictions, those folks will need to be the first ones in line for care, assuming it's not too late. That will make for yet more bottlenecks in treatment as new people flow through the system.
And even farther along that long row of dominoes, there will be everyday people going for preventative, diagnostic and relatively minor health care procedures. Things like visits to the dentist, orthodontist and periodontist for checkups, x-rays, orthodontal repairs, fillings and crowns. Recent research seems to suggest a strong correlation between oral health and overall state of health in general, including susceptibility to heart disease. If we're not able to get in for normal scheduled appointments, incipient problems will be more advanced by the time they're detected.
Screening procedures that even healthy people are urged to get on a regular basis include (but are not limited to) mammograms, cervical cancer tests, colonoscopies, prostate tests and bone density scans. Most of these are not happening at the moment.
Then we have vaccines (the non-Covid ones) and blood tests. Under normal circumstances, I would be getting blood tests every 8 weeks; I was due for some at the end of March and then again towards the end of May. My family doctor also recommended I get the shingles vaccine, subject to the approval of my rheumatologist - but that's not likely to happen for a while either. I suppose pharmacies might be able to handle some of the vaccines and blood tests, but they too are overburdened now.
Naturally it doesn't help that even before covid 19 hit, we were already plagued with hallway medicine, ambulances unable to "offload" patients, a shortage of family doctors and drugs that were either in short supply or prohibitively expensive. And oh, yes - the opioid crisis.
So after the pandemic, what will the new normal look like in terms of health care? Federalism makes it complicated, of course, but the crisis has certainly highlighted the need for a lot of things - a national pharmacare program, better home care and long term care, a dementia strategy...
We'll have to wait and see how it all evolves.
With the exception of residents of retirement and long-term care homes, we may not be seeing as big a surge as we had feared in Covid19 cases. But there's a bit of a domino effect here. More people with urgent care needs. More people whose "elective" (however that's defined) surgeries and other procedures have been cancelled or postponed. More "discouraged patients" who just don't bother trying to navigate the health care system. As we start to ease restrictions, those folks will need to be the first ones in line for care, assuming it's not too late. That will make for yet more bottlenecks in treatment as new people flow through the system.
And even farther along that long row of dominoes, there will be everyday people going for preventative, diagnostic and relatively minor health care procedures. Things like visits to the dentist, orthodontist and periodontist for checkups, x-rays, orthodontal repairs, fillings and crowns. Recent research seems to suggest a strong correlation between oral health and overall state of health in general, including susceptibility to heart disease. If we're not able to get in for normal scheduled appointments, incipient problems will be more advanced by the time they're detected.
Screening procedures that even healthy people are urged to get on a regular basis include (but are not limited to) mammograms, cervical cancer tests, colonoscopies, prostate tests and bone density scans. Most of these are not happening at the moment.
Then we have vaccines (the non-Covid ones) and blood tests. Under normal circumstances, I would be getting blood tests every 8 weeks; I was due for some at the end of March and then again towards the end of May. My family doctor also recommended I get the shingles vaccine, subject to the approval of my rheumatologist - but that's not likely to happen for a while either. I suppose pharmacies might be able to handle some of the vaccines and blood tests, but they too are overburdened now.
Naturally it doesn't help that even before covid 19 hit, we were already plagued with hallway medicine, ambulances unable to "offload" patients, a shortage of family doctors and drugs that were either in short supply or prohibitively expensive. And oh, yes - the opioid crisis.
So after the pandemic, what will the new normal look like in terms of health care? Federalism makes it complicated, of course, but the crisis has certainly highlighted the need for a lot of things - a national pharmacare program, better home care and long term care, a dementia strategy...
We'll have to wait and see how it all evolves.
