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26
Jan 2021
Covid – ‘sharp drop’ in patients admitted to hospital with heart attacks
Research has revealed that there has been a sharp drop in the number of patients admitted to hospitals in England with heart failure or heart attacks in recent months.
This was also the case during the first wave of the pandemic and experts are concerned that people who need urgent medical help and not seeking it, warning that delaying or avoiding help can kill.
They say that despite treating many Covid patients, the NHS is safe and open to anyone needing lifesaving care.
The researchers looked at 66 hospitals for the study and compared daily admission rates in the year before the pandemic with those during the first and second waves in England, up to 17th November.
In the first lockdown, daily admissions for heart failure or heart attacks dropped by over 50%. Numbers increased during the summer as coronavirus rates decreased and the NHS became less busy with the virus. However, in October, when coronavirus cases began to rise again, heart admissions dropped by between 35 and 41% compared with pre-pandemic data.
Researcher Professor Chris Gale said “Medical emergencies do not stop in a pandemic. I am afraid that we are seeing a re-run of one of the preventable tragedies of the first wave – people were either too afraid to go to hospital for fear of contracting Covid-19 or were not referred for treatment.
“The message to patients needs to be clear. If they experience symptoms of a heart attack or acute heart failure, they need to attend hospital”
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Posted by Karen Motley, Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.
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