A Doctor A Day Letter - Signed
A Doctor A Day Letter - Signed
A Doctor A Day Letter - Signed
Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Thousands of physicians in all specialties and from all States would like to express
our gratitude for your leadership. We write to you today to express our alarm over the
exponentially growing negative health consequences of the national shutdown.
During a mass casualty incident, victims are immediately triaged to black, red,
yellow, or green. The first group, triage level black, includes those who require too many
resources to save during a mass crisis. The red group has severe injuries that are
survivable with treatment, the yellow group has serious injuries that are not immediately
life threatening, and the green group has minor injuries.
The red group receives highest priority. The next priority is to ensure that the
other two groups do not deteriorate a level. Decades of research have shown that by
strictly following this algorithm, we save the maximum number of lives.
Millions of Americans are already at triage level red. These include 150,000
Americans per month who would have had a new cancer detected through routine
screening that hasn’t happened, millions who have missed routine dental care to fix
problems strongly linked to heart disease/death, and preventable cases of stroke, heart
attack, and child abuse. Suicide hotline phone calls have increased 600%.
Tens of millions are at triage level yellow. Liquor sales have increased 300-600%,
cigarettes sales have increased, rent has gone unpaid, family relationships have become
frayed, and millions of well-child check-ups have been missed.
Hundreds of millions are at triage level green. These are people who currently
are solvent, but at risk should economic conditions worsen. Poverty and financial
uncertainty is closely linked to poor health.
Patient E.S. is a mother with two children whose office job was reduced to part-
time and whose husband was furloughed. The father is drinking more, the mother is
depressed and not managing her diabetes well, and the children are barely doing any
schoolwork.
Patient A.F. has chronic but previously stable health conditions. Her elective hip
replacement was delayed, which caused her to become nearly sedentary, resulting in a
pulmonary embolism in April.
Patient R.T. is an elderly nursing home patient, who had a small stroke in early
March but was expected to make a nearly complete recovery. Since the shutdown, he
has had no physical or speech therapy, and no visitors. He has lost weight, and is
deteriorating rather than making progress.
Patient S.O. is a college freshman who cannot return to normal life, school, and
friendships. He risks depression, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, trauma, and future financial
uncertainty.
We are alarmed at what appears to be the lack of consideration for the future
health of our patients. The downstream health effects of deteriorating a level are being
massively under-estimated and under-reported. This is an order of magnitude error.
Because the harm is diffuse, there are those who hold that it does not exist. We,
the undersigned, know otherwise.
Respectfully,