Fort Worth-area residents hesitant to call 911 for fear of coronavirus at hospitals
Many Fort Worth-area residents are scared of calling 911, and it’s continuing to kill them, area healthcare leaders and MedStar officials said Tuesday.
And the reason is that residents fear contracting the coronavirus at hospitals, according to MedStar officials.
At the end of April, of the patients found to be in cardiac arrest, the number pronounced dead on scene by MedStar crews was up 164 percent compared to April 2019, according to MedStar statistics. That number was 50 in April 2019 compared with 132 in April 2020. Officials believe that’s because people with cardiac symptoms are waiting too long to call 911.
“We are quite concerned that locally and nationwide people are afraid, in some cases, to call 9-1--1,” said Stephen Love, president of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council in a Tuesday news release. “We are experiencing adverse patient outcomes by the patient not calling 9-1-1 or delaying the call.”
With fewer people calling 911, MedStar officials say their response volume is down 19 percent from January and ambulance transports to hospitals are down 28 percent.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues in Tarrant County. As of Tuesday, there had been more than 2,600 confirmed cases of the virus in the county. Eighty-three people have died and more than 200 hospital beds are occupied by patients with the virus.
And the pandemic fear is across the country.
Data similar to that released on Tuesday by MedStar also is being reported by EMS systems across the country. In a recent survey of 860 EMS agencies in the United States, 69 percent reported EMS responses had decreased.
In the Fort Worth-area, MedStar officials noted that response volume is down 19 percent from January and ambulance transports to hospitals are down 28 percent.
Area healthcare officials and MedStar crews fear patients in the Tarrant County area could be waiting too long before they call 911 for help, and then they are reluctant to be taken to a local hospital for fear of contracting the coronavirus.
MedStar statistics also indicated a dramatic reduction in calls for heart attacks and strokes in April compared to April 2019. Calls for heart attacks were down 42 percent and stroke responses were down 36 percent.
Local healthcare leaders emphasized that it is safe to call 911 or go to hospitals for acute medical problems.
“It is important that people call 911 if they feel they are experiencing a medical emergency,” said MedStar spokesman Matt Zavadsky in a recent news release. “Let your local EMS professionals respond, conduct a thorough medical assessment, and provide recommendations for the most appropriate medical care for you.”
MedStar provides emergency and non-emergency service to Fort Worth and 14 other member cities in North Texas. They also provide the service to Blue Mound, Burleson, Edgecliff Village, Forest Hill, Haltom City, Haslet, Lakeside, Lake Worth, River Oaks, Saginaw, Sansom Park, Westover Hills, Westworth Village and White Settlement.
MedStar provides advanced life support ambulance service to 436 square miles and more than 1 million residents and responds to over 150,000 calls a year with a fleet of 65 ambulances.
“Hospitals and the emergency departments focus constantly on infection control,” Love said. “Rest assured, it is safe to seek emergency medical care with no fear of contracting COVID-19.”
