North Memorial Health Hospital Reports Decline in ER Visits

Hospitals, include North Memorial Health Hospital in Robbinsdale, are seeing a decline in emergency room visits. Dr. Cameron Berg from North Memorial says it’s currently down 25 percent from normal and says its concerning because many of the visits are from people who need true emergency care.

“Looking at our real experience of COVID and 80 percent of people we see who don’t have COVID, we found it exceedingly unlikely to inadvertently transmit that virus either to our employees which is key or to patients, so the so called healthcare associated transmission of this virus is very very uncommon,” said Dr. Cameron Berg from North Memorial Health Hospital.

Berg said in March, emergency visits at North Memorial were down 50 percent compared to last year. Berg says this is a concern because a lot of these declining visits are from people that need true emergency care.

“We saw a forty percent reduction care in acute heart attack, and we saw a 40 percent reduction care in acute stroke,” said Berg. “When we see that in a health care facility we know its only a matter of days or weeks before that becomes much bigger problems.”

 Berg says if you suspect you might be having an emergency don’t fear coming to the emergency because of COVID.

You can see North Memorial Health Hospital’s procedures and policies related to COVID-19 here.

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