The question is: Was it safe for Bill Lindsey to be discharged from Greenwood Leflore Hospital before COVID-19 test results were known?
The hospital’s chief of staff, Dr. Billy Boldon, answered an inquiry, explaining that the hospital follows guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which do not recommend that a patient stay in a hospital simply for test results if the patient is clinically stable. The hospital, like other medical providers, sends samples taken for COVID-19 testing off site and cannot control how soon it gets results.
Lindsey’s wife, Margaret, believes her husband, who is 73, wasn’t well enough to return to their home in Sidon when he was discharged Tuesday following a one-night stay. She also worries that if he is infected, and she is not already, then she could be soon. Each has diabetes.
They’ve had a traumatic week. Her husband, she said, “has been in good health until this episode happened.” His diabetes was under control. He felt fine.
However, she returned home from her job at Milwaukee Tool on Thursday, April 2, to find her husband, who is retired from Greenwood Market Place, very ill. “His face was as red as the shirt I had on,” she said. His chest hurt, and he was having trouble breathing. He had a high fever.
She took him to Fast Pace Health Urgent Care in Greenwood, where the staff thought he might have pneumonia. They gave him a blood test and sent him to Greenwood Leflore Hospital, where he had a chest X-ray, she said. They sent him home with instructions to use Motrin (ibuprofen) to keep his fever down.
His wife said he remained unwell. “Well, he still felt so bad. He laid around — wasn’t eating, wasn’t drinking much,” she said. “He never got no better.”
On Monday at Milwaukee Tool, she called to check on him throughout the day. He told her he would be OK. That wasn’t the case.
She found him delirious when she arrived at the house. “When I got him up, I had to dress him, put his shoes on him, put his pants on him,” she said. “He was losing his balance. I took him to the emergency room.”
Lindsey said she was told there that he had a fever of 107. Because he was confused, she answered questions from the medical staff for him. “He didn’t know what day it was,” she said.
“Well, he’s got the symptoms of the virus,” Lindsey said she was told. A test was administered, and she said it was explained to her that “we won’t know the results for two days.” He was treated for fever and admitted.
But then around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, the hospital called to say he was going to be discharged “with oxygen.” The staff packed ice around him because, Lindsey said, “his fever was 104.”
And someone said test results were going to take longer. What Lindsey heard was, “It probably is going to take five days. We can’t have him around here sick like he is, spreading this around.”
She was advised to protect herself by wearing gloves and a mask and make sure they remain in separate quarters in the house. The couple has three bedrooms but only one bathroom. She reported the situation. Lindsey said a nurse asked if she could find another place to stay.
Lindsey said she answered, “And leave him here by himself? What is wrong with y’all?”
Back at the house, she put her husband in a bedroom and closed the door. She tried to reach their primary care doctor but was told he would be out until Monday. She thought about having her husband taken to Jackson and spoke with someone at the Baptist hospital there.
But they stayed in place. Lindsey is sleeping in another bedroom. She is wearing a mask and gloves. No one is visiting. He is taking Motrin. His fever was “a little over 100” Wednesday morning.
“It’s a lot lower,” Lindsey said. But she is still concerned about a possible relapse.
She said she told her husband that if grows worse, “I am going to call an ambulance and take you to Jackson.”
•Contact Susan Montgomery at 581-7241 or smontgomery@gwcommonwealth.com.
