Cleavon Gilman, MD, an emergency room physician, working at a hospital in Yuma Arizona tweeted his concern about the lack of available ICU beds on Nov. 22.
His tweet was clear-cut: “no more ICU beds in the state of Arizona.”
Gov. Doug Ducey and the Department of Health said that same day that there were over 100 ICU beds, Gilman said, but when Gilman went to the E.R. he said he wasn’t able to transfer a single patient to the ICU.
“I tweeted that, because that was a lie. Right?” Gilman said.
When there are no more ICU beds, E.R. patients are forced to board in the E.R. and the doctors there must take care of them for longer periods, which means that new patients will be sitting in waiting rooms for 8 to 12 hours.
“The point of that was to warn Arizona that we are in a very precarious situation. That our hospitals are on the brink of collapse,” he said.
He transfered one patient with a headbleed, who he said waited in the E.R. and went “probably to the O.R., but not to the I.C.U.”
The next day, Gilman said, “I was told by Envision, who is a staffing agency, that the hospital was not allowing me to return back due to a tweet.”
The hospital issued a statement that there had been a misunderstanding,” Gilman said.
“There’s no misunderstanding here. The fact is I was sidelined for three weeks,” he said, and because of his large social media following, “I was able to shine a light on this egregious act.”
“A lot of people try to get into semantics … about ‘were you fired?’ I was not permitted to work for three weeks. This is a staffing agency that staffs the hospital. I’m a highly trained E.R. doctor in a pandemic. Three of my colleagues were sick with the virus. I was unable to pick up any of their shifts to help out my team because of a tweet.”
Asked whether the hospital had reached out to him, Gilman said, “No, they haven’t reached out to me,” and that “negotiations were not happening.”
Gilman said he’s not interested in talking to the hospital anymore.
“They had three weeks to talk to me. They let me sit here and contemplate my future as if I did something wrong,” Gilman said.
“I think all people should be afforded due process. And hospitals should not have the abilty to just say. ‘You’re not gonna be able to work here, we’re gonna take you off of the schedule.’… I moved my entire family here. Thank God I didn’t buy a house here.”
Asked why he sent the tweet, Gilman said it was because cases in Arizona were rising. He was “sounding the alarm,” because he felt that stricter measures were needed.
“Three thousand people have died per day the last two days, which was up from twenty five hundred a day… if not higher,” he said.
“I’ve been to war … You don’t have to have served in Iraq to know that we are currently at war,” he said. Gilman stated that on Thursday, there were 150 patients who were hospitalized for COVID, and 31 in the ICU.
“Where are those patients gonna go?”
Gilman said his goal has always been to raise awareness about the danger of the pandemic and to encourage people to consider their behaviors, to wear masks, and to social distance.
Gilman has a strong social media following and has been sharing videos and written accounts of his observations on Facebook for months, including when he worked in New York City through the height of the pandemic.
But unlike in New York, Arizona’s lawmakers don’t appear to take the virus seriously, he said.
“Here there’s no state-wide mask mandate … Indoor dining is also open here, the gyms are open,” Gilman said.
“I’m just going to be honest with you, we need a hard-line approach. We need a shutdown. [That’s] the only thing that’s going to prevent a virus from finding new hosts… We actually have to keep people sheltered-in-place.”
But instead, during the pandemic massive soccer tournaments were held in Phoenix, with players coming from across the country, he said.
“This virus is real,” he said.
For those living in states that aren’t going to issue mask mandates or put restrictions in places there are still things people can do.
“You can protect your immediate family and not have any guests over… I’ve sheltered in place for 10 months now,” he said.
He goes to parks and the grocery store when it isn’t crowded.
“That’s how I protect my family.”
Throughout the pandemic he’s tweeted about the people killed by the virus: young people, teachers, law enforcement.
Gilman lost three colleagues and his 27-year-old cousin to the virus.
His cousin, Simon Press, went twice to the hospital and was sent home without a test and told he had anxiety.
After he died, he did ultimately did get a swab — from the coroner, Gilman said.
He was positive for COVID.
Gilman said he would ultimately like to do more work in health policy and was delighted to receive a call from President-elect Joe Biden, who commended him for his work. The two men — apart from being COVID-prevention activists — share something else: a stutter.
Asked whether he would encourage more clinicians to speak up, Gilman said he would not. Some people cannot afford to lose their jobs, or livelihoods, for themselves or their family.
But he supports the American College of Emergency Physicians bill to protect emergency room physicians and provide them with due process.
“I spoke out because I have a moral obligation … When everything’s said and done I’ll be on the right side of history.”
Source: MedicalNewsToday.com
