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January 22, 2022
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Omicron surge is undermining care for other health problems
By BEN FINLEY and KATE
BRUMBACK Associated
Press
Roger Strukhoff was being
treated for intestinal bleed-
ing at a hospital outside
Chicago this month when
he suffered a mild heart at-
tack.
Normally, the 67-year-old
would have been sent to
the intensive care unit. But
Strukhoff said it was over-
run with COVID-19 patients,
and the staff instead had
to wheel a heart monitor
into his room and quickly
administer nitroglycerin
and morphine.
"A doctor I know pretty well
said, 'Roger, we're going
to have to improvise right
here,'" said Strukhoff, who
lives in DeKalb, Illinois.
The omicron surge this win-
ter has not only swamped
U.S. hospitals with record
numbers of patients with
COVID-19, it has also
caused frightening mo-
ments and major head- ies and steroid injections wheeled his 92-year-old fa- was there for 48 hours. yet he wasn’t the only per-
aches for people trying to for rheumatoid arthritis. ther, Eugene Gleason, into He said his father called son in that room. There
get treatment for other ail- And people with all sorts of a Los Angeles-area emer- him after 10 hours, asking were dozens of people”
ments. medical complaints have gency room last week for a for a blanket. But Gleason added: “I’m
Less-urgent procedures had to wait in emergency transfusion to treat a blood “He told me later, ‘I just as- not begrudging the hospi-
have been put on hold rooms for hours longer than disorder. It should have tak- sumed they forgot about tal at all. They did a great
around the country, such usual. en about seven to 10 hours, me,” said Gleason, 57, who job.”
as cochlear implant surger- Mat Gleason said he Gleason said, but his dad works as an art critic. “And Continued on next page