It鈥檚 a bad time to get sick in Oregon. That鈥檚 the message from some doctors, as hospitals fill up with covid-19 patients and other medical conditions go untreated.
Charlie Callagan looked perfectly healthy sitting outside recently on his deck in the smoky summer air in the small Rogue Valley town of Merlin, in southern Oregon. But Callagan, 72, has a condition called multiple myeloma, a blood cancer of the bone marrow.
鈥淚t affects the immune system; it affects the bones,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 had a PET scan that described my bones as looking 鈥榢ind of Swiss cheese-like.鈥欌��
Callagan is a retired National Park Service ranger. Fifty years ago, he served in Vietnam. This spring, doctors identified his cancer as one of those linked to exposure to Agent Orange, the defoliant used during the war.
In recent years, Callagan has consulted maps showing hot spots where Agent Orange was sprayed in Vietnam.
鈥淚t turns out the airbase I was in was surrounded,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey sprayed all over.鈥�
A few weeks ago, Callagan was driving the nearly four-hour trek to Oregon Health & Science University in Portland for a , a major procedure that would have required him to stay in the hospital for a week and remain in the Portland area for tests for an additional two weeks. On the way, he got a call from his doctor.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e like, 鈥榃e were told this morning that we have to cancel the surgeries we had planned,鈥欌�� he said.
Callagan鈥檚 surgery was canceled because the hospital was full. That鈥檚 the story at many hospitals in Oregon and where they鈥檝e been patients.
OHSU spokesperson said the hospital, which is the state鈥檚 only public and serves patients from across the region, has had to postpone numerous surgeries and procedures in the wake of the delta surge of the pandemic. 鈥淪urgical postponements initially impacted patients who needed an overnight hospital stay, but more recently has impacted all outpatient surgeries and procedures,鈥� Robinson wrote.
Callagan said his bone marrow transplant has not yet been rescheduled.听
Such delays can have consequences, according to, who leads the oncology clinic handling Callagan鈥檚 care.
鈥淲ith cancer treatment, sometimes there鈥檚 a window of opportunity where you can go in and potentially cure the patient,鈥� Rizvi said. 鈥淚f you wait too long, the cancer can spread. And that can affect prognosis and can make a potentially curable disease incurable.鈥�
Such high stakes for delaying treatment at hospitals right now extends beyond cancer care.
鈥淚鈥檝e seen patients get ready to have their open-heart surgery that day. I鈥檝e seen patients have brain tumor with visual changes, or someone with lung cancer, and their procedures are canceled that day and they have to come back another day,鈥� said , a cardiologist and co-director of the regional cardiac center in Medford, Oregon. 鈥淵ou always hope they come back.鈥�
In early September, Dauterman said, the local hospital had 28 patients who were waiting for open-heart surgery, 24 who needed pacemakers, and 22 who were awaiting lung surgeries. During normal times, he said, there is no wait.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to be dramatic 鈥� it鈥檚 just there鈥檚 plenty of other things killing Oregonians before this,鈥� Dauterman said.
Right now, the vast majority of patients in Oregon hospitals with covid are unvaccinated, about five times as many as those who got the vaccine, according to the Oregon Health Authority. Covid infections are starting to decline from the peak of the delta wave. But even in non-pandemic times, there鈥檚 not a lot of extra room in Oregon鈥檚 health care system.
鈥淚f you look at the number of hospital beds per capita, Oregon has population. That鈥檚 the lowest in the country,鈥� said , CEO of the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems.
focused on curtailing nonemergency procedures looked back at how Veterans Health Administration hospitals did during the first pandemic wave. It found that the VA health system was able to reduce elective treatments by 91%.
It showed that stopping elective procedures was an effective tool to free up beds in intensive care units to care for covid patients. But the study didn鈥檛 look at the consequences for those patients who had to wait.
鈥淲e clearly, even in hindsight, made the right decision of curtailing elective surgery,鈥� said , a professor of surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the study鈥檚 lead author. 鈥淏ut we as a society have not really emphatically asked the question 鈥楢t what price in the long term?鈥欌��
He said they won鈥檛 know that without more long-term research.
At his home in southern Oregon, Charlie Callagan said he doesn鈥檛 consider his bone-marrow transplant as urgent as what some people are facing right now.
鈥淭here鈥檚 so many other people who are being affected,鈥� he said. 鈥淧eople are dying waiting for a hospital bed. That just angers me. It鈥檚 hard to stay quiet now.鈥�
He said it鈥檚 hard to be sympathetic for the covid patients filling up hospitals, when a simple vaccine could have prevented most of those hospitalizations.
This story is from a reporting partnership that includes , and .听