Overfilled ICUs put non-COVID patients' health at risk: "These are people suffering unnecessarily"
CBSN
Nathaniel Osborn spent more than six hours in a Florida hospital's emergency room with his 12-year-old son Seth this past July. The two waited together as Seth's appendix ruptured, and there were no beds available. Despite Seth being in excruciating pain, doctors told Seth's family the hospital emergency room was overwhelmed with COVID patients.
"My wife was taken from the emergency room waiting room back into the observation rooms there, and she asked one of the nurses, 'What's going on? Why did we have to wait so long?' And the nurse rolled her eyes and said something to the effect of, 'Well, what do you think? We're slammed with COVID,'" Osborn told CBS News' Manuel Bojorquez.
Seth was eventually seen and recovered, but his situation is not uncommon. Across the nation, hospitals' emergency rooms are overfilled with mostly unvaccinated COVID-19 patients—putting everyone who needs healthcare in danger.
