‘i’m scared’

Texas Veteran Dies From Easily Treatable Illness Amid ICU Bed Shortage

“I’ve never lost a patient from this diagnosis, ever,” ER physician Dr. Hasan Kakli said.

A Texas Army veteran died from gallstone pancreatitis—an easily treatable illness—last week after waiting 24 hours for an ICU bed to open up in the COVID-swamped state, according to CBS This Morning. Daniel Wilkinson first went to his local hospital, where ER doctor Hasan Kakli diagnosed him with pancreatitis, telling him he’d need immediate treatment but her medical center was unequipped to perform the procedure. With hospitals filled with COVID-19 patients, it took many calls and hours before they found an open bed at a V.A. hospital in Houston that Wilkinson could be taken to by helicopter. But by the time he got there—24 hours after he first arrived at his local hospital—his illness was too late to treat. “They weren’t able to do the procedure on him because it had been too long,” his mom said. “[They] told me that they had seen air pockets in his intestines, which means that they were already starting to die off.”

“I’ve never lost a patient from this diagnosis, ever,” Kakli told CBS. “We know what needs to be done and we know how to treat it, and we get them to where they need to go. I’m scared that the next patient that I see is someone that I can’t get to where they need to get to go.”