WINNIPEG - A group of Manitoba doctors is calling on the province to issue a stay at home order, the shutdown of most businesses, and other stricter public health orders to help them keep up with Manitoba’s COVID-19 case numbers.
As Ontario and Saskatchewan plan to reopen, and Quebec is reports its lowest daily count of new cases in seven months, Manitoba is once again ranked as having the highest per-capita rate of COVID-19 infections in the country.
Also setting a record high are more than 80 patients in Manitoba ICUs, and the letter states, “It’s clear that the rules are simply not good enough to get us out of this crisis.” The statement, signed by six doctors with a variety of areas of specialty, warns that anyone with a chronic condition, such as early cancer that can be screened or surgery that is getting delayed, is now in serious risk of not getting the care they need.
Dr. Eric Jacobsohn, a U of M professor, cardiac anaesthesia specialist at the Health Sciences Centre, and one of the doctors who signed the letter asking for the shut-down, says six patients have died while waiting for heart surgery, one of the types of medical procedures that physicians have had to delay while they focus on treating life-threatening COVID-19 cases.
Quote from this article "says six patients have died while waiting for heart surgery, one of the types of medical procedures that physicians have had to delay while they focus on treating life-threatening COVID-19 cases". One does not have to be a Physician to conclude if six patients died waiting for heart surgery, their condition was life-threatening. According to this report, Dr. Eric Jacobsohn advises that the six heart patients died since doctors considered the Covid patients with life-threatening conditions deserved treatment before the heart patients. This is a difficult and frightening conclusion to accept for anyone waiting for heart surgery.