Don't go to the emergency room or even an urgent care clinic just to get a COVID-19 test.
That's the pressing plea issued by the Minnesota Hospital Association (MHA). With at-home tests hard to find and the state's community testing options swamped, it may be tempting to head to your hometown hospital to find out if you're infected.
It's human nature to want an answer right away, but resist this temptation. Health care staff were already exhausted and their ranks diminished before the highly transmissible omicron variant arrived. Patients with heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, falls on the ice and other non-COVID needs require critical care.
Emergency rooms and bays are filled. Patients are awaiting treatment in hallways. Surgeries are delayed or canceled.
No, there isn't a health care professional free to come out to the waiting room and swab your nose or provide a spit tube, and then manage the processing and communication responsibilities that ensue.
"We have run out of words to describe what we are undergoing — a crisis does not even come close; hospitals are literally full," the MHA said in an alarming statement issued Friday.
In a follow-up interview, Dr. Rahul Koranne, MHA's president and CEO, told an editorial writer that the strain is statewide. "It is truly an amazing, all-hands-on-deck situation," Koranne said, citing examples of health care administrators busing trays or helping with call centers.
But worries are deepening about an even greater omicron surge over the coming weeks, particularly as staffing ranks are thinned by illness. That's why the MHA is asking for Minnesotans' assistance in easing pressure on emergency departments and urgent care centers, which face similar capacity issues.