在流行病期間，美國城市中約有五分之一的家庭沒有得到所需的醫(yī)療護(hù)理

在流行病期間，美國城市中約有五分之一的家庭沒有得到所需的醫(yī)療護(hù)理

When 28-year-old Katie Kinsey moved from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles in early March, she didn't expect the pandemic would affect her directly, at least not right away. But that's exactly what happened.

今年3月初，28歲的凱蒂·金賽從華盛頓特區(qū)搬到洛杉磯時，她沒有想到流行病會直接影響到她，至少不會立刻影響到她。但事實就是如此。

"I had a sore throat and a debilitating cough," she says, "and when I say debilitating, I mean I couldn't talk without coughing." She couldn't lie down at night without coughing. She just wasn't getting enough air into her lungs, she says.

“我喉嚨痛，咳嗽很厲害，”她說，“我說虛弱，是指我不咳嗽就沒法說話。”她晚上躺下時總是咳嗽。她說，她只是沒有得到足夠的空氣進(jìn)入肺部。

Kinsey, who works as a federal consultant in nuclear defense technology, found herself coughing through phone meetings. And then things got worse. Her energy took a dive, and she felt achy all over, "so I was taking naps during the day." She never got a fever but worried about the coronavirus and accelerated her effort to find a doctor.

金賽是一名核防御技術(shù)方面的聯(lián)邦顧問，她發(fā)現(xiàn)自己在電話會議上不停地咳嗽。然后事情變得更糟了。她的精力銳減，感到渾身疼痛，“所以我白天一直打個盹。”她從未發(fā)燒，但擔(dān)心感染冠狀病毒，于是加快了找醫(yī)生的步伐。

She called nearly a dozen doctors listed on her insurance card, but all were booked. "Some said they were flooded with patients and couldn't take new patients. Others gave no explanation, and just said they were sorry and could put me on a waiting list." All the waiting lists were two to three months' long.

她給自己保險卡上列出的十幾個醫(yī)生打了電話，但都被預(yù)約了。一些人說，醫(yī)院擠滿了病人，無法接收新病人。其他人沒有解釋，只是說他們很抱歉，可以把我列入候補名單。”所有的等候名單都有兩到三個月的時間。

Eventually Kinsey went to an urgent care clinic, got an X-ray and a diagnosis of severe bronchitis — not COVID-19. Antibiotics helped her get better. But she says she might have avoided "months of illness and lost days of work" had she been able to see a doctor sooner. She was sick for three months.

最終金賽去了一個緊急護(hù)理診所，做了X光檢查，并被診斷為嚴(yán)重支氣管炎，而不是COVID-19?？股貛椭謴?fù)了健康。但她說，如果她能早點去看醫(yī)生，她可能會避免“數(shù)月的疾病和失去幾天的工作”。她病了三個月。

Kinsey's experience is just one way the pandemic has delayed medical care for Americans in the last several months. A poll of households in the four largest U.S. cities by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health finds roughly one in every five have had at least one member who was unable to get medical care or who has had to delay care for a serious medical problem during the pandemic (ranging from 19% of households in New York City to 27% in Houston).

金賽的經(jīng)歷只是在過去幾個月里，流行病延誤了美國人的醫(yī)療護(hù)理的一個方面。NPR對美國四大城市家庭的民意調(diào)查，羅伯特·伍德·約翰遜基金會和哈佛大學(xué)T.H.Chan公共衛(wèi)生學(xué)院發(fā)現(xiàn)，大約每五個家庭中就有一個家庭至少有一人在流行病期間因嚴(yán)重的醫(yī)療問題而無法獲得醫(yī)療服務(wù)或不得不推遲治療(紐約市19%的家庭到休斯敦27%的家庭不等)。

There were multiple reasons given. Many people reported, like Kinsey, that they could not find a doctor to see them as hospitals around the U.S. delayed or canceled certain medical procedures to focus resources on treating COVID-19.

有多種原因。許多人和金賽一樣報告說，由于美國各地的醫(yī)院推遲或取消了某些醫(yī)療程序，以集中資源治療COVID-19，他們找不到醫(yī)生為他們看病。

Other patients avoided critically important medical care because of fears they would catch the coronavirus while in a hospital or medical office.

還有一些病人因為擔(dān)心在醫(yī)院或醫(yī)務(wù)室感染冠狀病毒而避免接受非常重要的醫(yī)療護(hù)理。

"One thing we didn't expect from COVID was that we were going to drop 60% of our volume," says Ryan Stanton, an emergency physician in Lexington, Ky., and member of the board of directors of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

肯塔基州列克星敦的一位急診醫(yī)生萊恩·斯坦頓說:“我們沒有料到COVID會使我們的業(yè)務(wù)量減少60%。”他還是美國急診醫(yī)師學(xué)會的董事會成員。

"We had people come in with heart attacks after having chest pain for three or four days," Stanton says, "or stroke patients who had significant loss of function for several days, if not a week. And I'd ask them why they hadn't come in, and they would say almost universally they were afraid of COVID."

斯坦頓說：“我們有人在胸痛三四天后出現(xiàn)心臟病發(fā)作，或者中風(fēng)患者連續(xù)幾天(如果不是一周的話)功能嚴(yán)重喪失。我會問他們?yōu)槭裁床粊?，他們會說幾乎所有人都害怕COVID。”

The poll finds a majority of households in leading U.S. cities who delayed medical care for serious problems say they had negative health consequences as a result (ranging from 55% in Chicago to 75% in Houston and 63% in Los Angeles).

調(diào)查發(fā)現(xiàn)，在美國主要城市，大多數(shù)因嚴(yán)重問題而推遲醫(yī)療護(hù)理的家庭表示，他們因此而對健康造成負(fù)面影響。