Those in the medical field, we took it upon ourselves to come up with our own protocol. I received numerous messages from friends from various parts of the country who could not get in contact with the State Department of Health. We knew that eventually with this epidemic we’re going to completely deplete our health care system.
Does Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center have the test, if so, who can get the test?
We don’t really have the test. We recommend that everyone who has traveled to high-risk countries or developed symptoms, such as coughing, fever, shortness of breath, if you’re older than 55, they will tell you to call the emergency department.
Once you arrive, then we will put a mask on you, and then a physician will take you to an isolation room, which is a negative pressure room that isolates you from the rest of the population so that we could reduce the risk of infection.
We’ll swab your nose and also we’ll swab your throat, and we will send those off to a test lab. Once those results are received, if it’s positive, we will send that same test and it will be sent to CDC for final confirmation.
Right now that’s how we’ve been taught because we don’t actually have the testing in the hospital. There are a lot of hospitals and clinics that don’t have the actual test for COVID-19.
