SAN ANTONIO – Primary care physicians are some of the health care workers who are on the front lines of defense to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. But one San Antonio doctor doesn’t believe enough is being done to support them.
“In my 25 years of practicing medicine, I have not seen anything like this. And we have not even gotten close to the peak,” said Dr. Saleh Jaafar said, who works at Medcare Associates in Stone Oak.
His office used to get about 30-40 calls a day before the outbreak. Now, it gets about 100 calls.
Jaafar’s practice cares for about 9,000 patients in different offices. He wonders how much longer he’ll be able to handle the patient load due to his medical supplies running low.
“If we crash because we don’t have the help, every one of those patients is going to be in the emergency room. And it’s going to be a real disaster because emergency rooms and hospitals are definitely not ready to see 10 million patients or 50 million patients,” he said.
Jaafar said he’s been calling hospitals, Metro Health and companies that supply medical equipment, but no one has been able to help.
Dr. David Fleeger, with Texas Medical Association, which represents more than 54,000 members in the medical field, said it’s a problem primary care physicians are facing statewide. The group has been trying to keep up with the changing guidelines and protocols issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health officials.
“That’s one of the problems our doctors have is they have information come at them from all directions,” Fleeger said.
“We need help from the state, the governor. We need help from the hospitals who have a lot of this equipment,” Fleeger said. “We need help from the suppliers. We have doctors that the suppliers can’t even tell them when the equipment will be available.“
Jaafar said a point of contact needs to be organized locally for medical professionals to speak with about protocols and guidelines.
“Do we have somebody local with the 800-number saying, ‘OK, doctors, you’re primary care takers. The first line of defense — what you need is this number.’ Or do we have somebody calling and saying, ‘You guys doing OK? We’re seeing patients.’ We definitely don’t have it,” Jaafar said.
Metro Health said it’s up to each provider to coordinate their own supplies. They do have a number for medical professionals. But some of the medical staff say that number goes to a voicemail and sometimes that number is full.
Jaafar’s office has started to see at-risk patients by having a doctor and a nurse conduct the COVID-19 test while the patient remains in their vehicle as an added precautionary measure.
COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new virus, stands for coronavirus disease 2019. The disease first appeared in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, but spread around the world in early 2020, causing the World Health Organization to declare a pandemic in March.
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