Home » News: Detroit Health Care Worker Dies After Hospital Denies Coronavirus Test 4 Times, Daughter Says

News: Detroit Health Care Worker Dies After Hospital Denies Coronavirus Test 4 Times, Daughter Says

by Atqnews
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Detroit

Deborah Gatewood, a 63-year-old healthcare worker, spent half her life working at the same Detroit hospital. She was a phlebotomist at Beaumont Hospital in Farmington Hills, Michigan. She’d been there for 31 years.

But when Gatewood suspected she might have contacted COVID-19, she went to Beaumont’s emergency room on March 18 and requested a coronavirus test. The hospital declined to give her one and she was sent home.

“They said she wasn’t severe enough and that they weren’t going to test her,” Kaila Corrothers, Gatewood’s only child, told Fox 2 Detroit. “They told her to just go home and rest.”

Gatewood requested the test the next day. She was again denied and told to take cough medicine. Gatewood requested the test a total of four times at Beaumont, and each time she was turned down, according to her daughter.

At the end of March, Gatewood’s daughter found her mother lying in bed at home unresponsive. Corrothers took her mother to another hospital, Sinai-Grace Hospital, where she was finally tested for the coronavirus.

“By then, Gatewood had developed bilateral pneumonia and had to be intubated. Then her kidneys failed,” The Root reported. She died on April 17. She was two years away from retirement.

After Gatewood’s death, Beaumont Hospital released a statement about its admission protocol: “As patients come to Beaumont for care during this pandemic, we are doing everything we can to evaluate, triage, and care for patients based on the information we know at the time. We grieve the loss of any patient to COVID-19 or any other illness.”

“The fact that she got infected by doing the job she did for 31 years and she couldn’t get taken care of by her own family, meaning Beaumont — it’s sad,” said Corrothers. “It is disheartening, to say the least.”

COVID-19 has killed more Detroiters than homicides have in the past two years combined. Michigan’s hospitals may not be fully reporting how many of their workers have contracted and/or died from the virus, Bridge Michigan reported.

The Free Press contacted several Michigan hospitals that declined to give numbers on how many of their staff had died from COVID-19. The newspaper confirmed some of the deaths through unions such as the Michigan Nurses Association.

“A Free Press investigation finds that the coronavirus is the suspected cause of death in Michigan for at least 16 people who worked in hospitals, nursing homes, group homes, and health insurance — more than the six workers their employers have previously acknowledged. (A union official confirmed a seventh),” Bridge Michigan reported.

“It’s outrageous that the deaths of front-line workers are not being disclosed to the public,” said Jamie Brown, a critical care nurse and president of the Michigan Nurses Association, the largest union and professional association representing registered nurses in the state.

“No one should become numb to the fact that this virus continues to kill people including nurses and other workers,” Brown said in a statement. “There’s no doubt that some of these deaths could have been prevented if appropriate steps had been taken. Employers and the federal government must do more to provide the life-saving personal protective equipment and policies workers need to stay safe.”

Written by Ann Brown
Source: moguldom.com

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