'Patients are suffering across the board': A Texas ER doctor said hospitals are getting overwhelmed with patients of varying causes as the state gets battered by coronavirus outbreaks

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• Dr. Natasha Kathuria, an emergency medicine physician with expertise in public health and epidemiology, has been treating patients at the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.
• Based in Austin, Texas, she described how doctors in the six different ERs where she works have become overrun with both coronavirus and non-coronavirus patients.
• The ER doctor said the record-high coronavirus case counts don't portray "an accurate picture" of the situation in the state, as families and hospital staff feel not only the devastating impact of COVID-19 outbreaks but also patients who die of other causes.
• "It's not just, 'We've got a lot of COVID-19, and everyone's dying of COVID-19,'" Kathuria said. "Patients with cancer are not getting their cancer surgery, patients who are delivering children in the hospital and not being able to feel comfortable that they're not at risk for COVID."
• She emphasized the importance of showing how overwhelmed hospitals are in hopes to make it a higher priority to get a more cohesive and rapid coronavirus testing and contact tracing infrastructure in place.
• Until then, Kathuria said she hopes that people put aside political beliefs and become more unified in their response to the virus, at least until the coronavirus becomes more manageable.
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An ER doctor in Texas described the devastating impact of coronavirus outbreaks in the state, emphasizing that not only are COVID-19 patients suffering but patients "across the board."

Dr. Natasha Kathuria, an emergency medicine physician with expertise in public health and epidemiology, told Business Insider that as the wave of coronavirus cases slams the state, hospitals are getting overwhelmed treating all types of cases.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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