Doctors are sounding alarm bells over what they see as a growing trend of people with serious and life-threatening illnesses avoiding hospitals during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
It’s unclear if people are staying away from hospitals because they’re scared of catching the virus or because they want to lessen the burden on the healthcare system — or both — but frontline medical workers say there’s been a big drop in the number of hospital visits since the outbreak began. “I lost the battle to save a patient last night because they waited too long to come to the hospital,” said Calgary cardiologist and internal medicine specialist Dr.