An area mother, who asked to remain unnamed, has two children exhibiting all the signs of coronavirus disease according to the CDC website:
- dry cough
- fever
- shortness of breath
She took the children to Saint Francis Hospital in Muskogee and asked if they could be tested for the virus. Instead, she was told, the children couldn’t be tested because they were not in one of the most at-risk groups: the elderly or those with serious underlying health issues.
The mother says she was told to take the children home and quarantine with them instead. A nurse at the hospital, she said, told her the children likely do have the virus, but “because she is young, they aren’t worried about her. Those were her exact words.”
She says she called the Wagoner hospital and was told something similar: that symptoms had to be much more severe to warrant a test.
“I don’t want to wait until she can’t breathe at all,” the mother said. “She is coughing so hard that she can’t breathe.”
Saint Francis Hospital has not yet returned calls for comment.
