The coronavirus pandemic is forcing physicians to ration care for patients who do not have COVID-19, Emile Bacha, MD, a New York City-based surgeon wrote in a letter to friends and colleagues, CNN reports.
Dr. Bacha, who is chief of the cardiac, thoracic and vascular surgery division at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, said in the letter that the pandemic is requiring healthcare providers to make "decisions that I personally have never had to contemplate before."
Insufficient resources, including nurses and personal protective equipment, have resulted in physicians having to "ration care and make decisions about who is considered an urgent or emergent case."
Dr. Bacha also runs the congenital and pediatric cardiac surgery program. He said the program only has one operating team.
Several hospitals around the country are delaying or postponing elective or nonurgent procedures. In some states, governors have ordered hospitals to do so. But deciding which procedures can be delayed, and which cannot, is harrowing.
"We have to decide what to do about endless other cases, such as shunt-dependent infants, children with ventricular septal defects in heart failure, teenagers with bad valves, and so on — all families in need, looking for our help," Dr. Bacha wrote, according to CNN.
More articles on integration and physician issues:
Meet the 'Covidsitters': 350+ medical students supporting hospital workers in Minnesota
13 New York medical schools allowing early graduation during pandemic
NYU Langone tells ED physicians to 'think more critically about who we intubate,' get permission to talk to press