MIAMI — Hospitals in Florida are seeing an increase in the number of patients coming into emergency rooms for medical issues not related to the deadly coronavirus, Gov. Ron DeSantis says.
Speaking at Pan American Hospital in Miami on Tuesday, the governor said Florida saw a decline in March and April in the number of people showing up at hospitals for conditions like heart problems and stroke.
"People didn't all of a sudden stop having heart attacks. The people were not as comfortable seeking medical care then," DeSantis said.
Since then, however, those people who were nervous to seek medical care in hospitals due to fears of the coronavirus have seen their symptoms worsen.
"If you put off the heart, it tends to get worse," DeSantis said. "Some of the patients now that are presenting for things like heart and stroke are presenting more severely because these symptoms started previously and they just didn't go into the hospital."
WATCH NEWS CONFERENCE:
The governor said that, starting on Wednesday, the state will send 100 medical personnel, mostly nurses, to the Jackson Health System in Miami to help handle a surge in emergency department patients.
"I think that will be something that will be useful for them as they continue to deal with, not only COVID patients, but non-COVID patients," DeSantis said.
SPECIAL COVERAGE: Coronavirus
According to the latest numbers from the Florida Department of Health on Tuesday, there are 213,794 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state, an increase of 7,347 cases from the day before.
