CMO Catherine O’Neal blames patients for 'Darkest days of pandemic'
I will sit in Tiger Stadium -- I will watch our vaccinated team play a phenomenal game of football over this year. But when I look around, the people are not there--people I high-fived, those stands are filled with dead tiger GEAUXSTS - And not because they let tickets GEAUX
There are no beds left. These are the darkest days of this pandemic. We are no longer giving adequate care to patients.
— Dr. Catherine O’Neal, chief medical officer and infectious disease specialist
Dr. Catherine O’Neal, Chief Medical Officer--Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System (FMOLHS), Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center (OLOL-RMC), is guest speaker at the Press Club of Baton Rouge, Dec. 13, 2021.
Dr. O’Neal is an infectious disease specialist. She speaks about local health concerns related to managing COVID pandemic during the holidays and winter months, including Omicron variant in metropolitan area.
A Baton Rouge infectious disease specialist gave a stark account of the dangers of coronavirus delta variant circulating through Louisiana,
saying that it's causing children to lose their parents, pregnant women to lose their babies and that choosing vaccination is the only option to avoid more deaths.
Dr. Catherine O'Neal, of Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, delivered her most impassioned account of the dangers of the virus since the pandemic's beginning at Gov. John Bel Edwards' news conference Friday.
"I want to be clear after seeing what I've seen the past two weeks," O'Neal said.
"We only have two choices: we are either going to get vaccinated and end the pandemic, Or we are going to accept death.
A lot of it, this surge, and another surge, and possibly another variant."
She said Our Lady of the Lake is being quickly overwhelmed by the latest surge of patients, who are different from those who got sick with the coronavirus last summer.
While last summer's virus was not particularly infectious among children, the delta variant is, she said.
And while pregnant women were better able to protect themselves last summer, more and more of them are being admitted to the hospitals this spring.
"Delta variant is coming for our children," O'Neal said.
"We are seeing increased admissions, we are seeing increased office visits, we are seeing sick kids and intubated kids today in our hospital."
O'Neal, who has been one of the governor's close advisers throughout the pandemic, described how the delta variant gets into a patient's body before they know they are sick.
For the vaccinated, she said, it's OK because their antibodies can still kick in to fight the virus.
"For the unvaccinated,
it's like letting a burglar cross all the way through your threshold, all the way into your bedroom and wake you up from sleep before you know it's there," O'Neal said.
"Delta variant is sneaky, it's a beast and it has figured out why you are no longer that person who's going to be fine.
"It's killing us."
A 'statewide outbreak' in Louisiana: COVID cases soar as vaccination rates stall.
She implored people to realize that people dying are friends and neighbors.
"What are we seeing with our COVID patients?" she said.
"When I look through our list every morning, it's my friends."
It's my peers.
the kids are my kids, and my kids are starting college in 3 weeks-- they're not going to live.
It is us.
O'Neal put it plainly:
if you don't choose the vaccine, you choose hideous death.
I choose vaccination, she added.
Our Lady of the Lake
Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, Baton Rouge, La, senior Ethicist scholar, Franciscan colostrum, VP Integration, Fran Health Assoc. for Sensible Prof. Ethics encourages high quality scholars teaching ethics to educators and practitioners who appreciate theoretical impact.
The organization supports efforts of universities and local, state, and national governments to foster development and don analysis on ethical problems.
HEALTH CARE ETHICS' Master Advanced Ethics Program fosters ethical topics between ethical theory and medical practice.
The Director of Ethics is accountable for system-wide ethics, ethics structure, and ethics consulting, and compliance.
Author is Ethicist of Lake Regional
Our Lady Of The Lake Physician Group LLC is a Medical Group that has 104 medical offices located in 2 states 21 cities in the U.S.A.
There are 511 health care providers, specializing in
Psychiatry, Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, Pediatric Medicine,
Geriatric Medicine, General Surgery, Critical Care (Intensivists),
Hospice/Palliative Care, Pulmonary Disease, Rheumatology and more, being
reported as members of the medical group. Medical taxonomies which are
covered by Our Lady Of The Lake Physician Group LLC include Geriatric
Medicine, Pediatric Orthopedic Surgery, Otolaryngology/Facial Plastic
Surgery, Registered Nurse, Gynecology, Clinical, Psychiatry, Addiction
(Substance Use Disorder), Allergy & Immunology, Audiologist-Hearing
Aid Fitter and many more.
… some tips from Dr. Catherine O’Neal
Baton Rouge Louisiana, Our Lady Of The Lake Physician Group LLC has 380 members working at 50 different practice locations.
Medical taxonomies covered by group's doctors and health care providersin the city include Allopathic & Osteopathic Physicians/Internal Medicine, Student, Health Care/Student in an Organized Health Care Education/Training Program, Physician Assistants & Advanced Practice Nursing Providers/Physician Assistant, Physician Assistants & Advanced Practice Nursing Providers/Nurse Practitioner, Allopathic & Osteopathic Physicians/Emergency Medicine, Nurse Practitioner/Family, Allopathic & Osteopathic Physicians/Hospitalist, Allopathic & Osteopathic Physicians/Pediatrics, Internal Medicine/Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Nurse Practitioner/Acute Care and more.