Elderly people who are hesitant to go to hospital due to infection anxiety
Due to the influence of the new coronavirus, there is a growing tendency to refrain from going out, and some elderly people with chronic illness have hesitated to go to hospitals, which is the essential place to go.
Some medical institutions have begun to prescribe medicines by phone only if the conditions are met.
Kazuo Nomura (84), living in Edogawa-ku, Tokyo, has had high blood pressure for about 20 years and has been consulted once a month at a nearby clinic to prescribe a drug that lowers blood pressure.
However, he says he is worried that going to the hospital in the current situation may increase the risk of infection. The medicine at home is running low, but I am still wondering if I will go to the hospital.
Nomura said, “I am afraid to go out because I have a chronic illness. If the infection continues to spread, I will not want to go to the hospital as much as possible.”
Under these circumstances, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has made it possible for family medical institutions to receive prescriptions only for some of the treatments for chronic diseases from the end of February by phone alone.
At Moriyama Memorial Hospital in Edogawa-ku, Tokyo, where medical treatment was started by telephone last month, inquiries continued to be centered on elderly patients, and there were 58 telephone treatments a month.
At the hospital, when you make an appointment from a patient, you will hear the number of the consultation ticket, check the status of the consultation so far, decide on the day of medical treatment by telephone, and your doctor will respond on the day.
Dr. Seigo Matsuo said, "We believe that it is effective in preventing the spread of infection because we can avoid situations where patients are crowded in waiting rooms."
However, only a limited number of medical institutions are providing telephone medical treatment, and there is a possibility that the number of elderly people who will suffer from chronic illness will increase in the future due to the necessity of going to the hospital.