Cardiologist: Heart disease patients not seeing doctors amid coronavirus fears
Apr 17, 2020, 4:25 AM | Updated: 7:21 am
(Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
PHOENIX — A leading Valley cardiologist shares the lessons learned from China and Europe — and from her own highly at-risk patients — about the coronavirus.
China slowed its spread faster with more personal protective equipment for doctors.
“Unfortunately in the U.S., we just did not have the equipment for our frontlines,” Banner University Medicine Heart Institute physician executive director Dr. Martha Gulati told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Thursday.
She also learned of a 38% drop in heart patients reporting heart attack symptoms from the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
That’s because those patients are not seeing cardiologists, “because of their fears of contracting COVID-19, or patients trying not to bother doctors… if this isn’t a heart attack,” Dr. Gulati said.
Heart disease patients are among the highest at risk for contracting the virus.
“We need patients to remember that we are going to take care of them, whether they have COVID-19, or don’t have COVID-19,” Dr. Gulati said.
“And we’re going to do our best to protect those patients without COVID-19.”
And Doctor Gulati says the pandemic has taught her colleagues to embrace telemedicine.
She adds she enjoys longer, deeper talks with her patients that she ordinarily wouldn’t have in person.