Patients flying from NY for surgeries

[laurengvoss, BSN, RN]

My facility is seeing patients fly in from New York in order to have surgery (example: “urgent” ACL repair”).

Is anyone else experiencing this? What do you do? How do you screen? Do you allow it?

[toomuchbaloney]

19 minutes ago, laurengvoss said:

My facility is seeing patients fly in from New York in order to have surgery (example: “urgent” ACL repair”).

Is anyone else experiencing this? What do you do? How do you screen? Do you allow it?

I thought that was what the ship was for...

[laurengvoss, BSN, RN]

Apparently it’s a big waiting list (makes sense). A patient didn’t want to wait until later this Summer, so hopped on a plane. Very frustrating.

[adventure_rn, MSN, NP]

My bigger question is, why are they performing surgeries like ACL repairs at all? If the facility would shut down non-urgent surgeries, then people wouldn't fly in from hot spots to have them in the first place...

Regarding screening, you could do it, but I figure it's probably a waste of time. If somebody is determined enough to make a flight just to get an elective surgery during lock down, they aren't going to truthfully answer a screening question which would prevent them from having the surgery done.

[guest1146168]

1 hour ago, adventure_rn said:

My bigger question is, why are they performing surgeries like ACL repairs at all? If the facility would shut down non-urgent surgeries, then people wouldn't fly in from hot spots to have them in the first place...

Regarding screening, you could do it, but I figure it's probably a waste of time. If somebody is determined enough to make a flight just to get an elective surgery during lock down, they aren't going to truthfully answer a screening question which would prevent them from having the surgery done. 

This exactly on both points. There was at least one reported incident I saw already of a woman arrested for taking antipyretics before flying to mask her symptoms so it doesn't seem far fetched to think that could happen.