UPMC Pointlessly Risks its Clients’ Lives with Potential Exposure to COVID-19

In the midst of this coronavirus pandemic, I received a letter in my mailbox inviting me to call and schedule a home visit for a wellness check. The phone number in the letter would connect me with a representative of a company called Matrix Medical Network.

The letter outlined the purpose of the visit and estimated its duration at an hour or so. Blood pressure would be taken. My health history would be reviewed. The rep, a nurse practitioner, would listen to my health concerns and answer any questions I might have. My medications and dosages would be reviewed. Screening or diagnostics might be recommended. It would be determined whether I was eligible for additional screenings.

That’s it. Do you hear anything medically necessary in that small list, any activity or intervention whose worth could outweigh the risk of a health care worker infecting citizens in their own home? You have nurse practitioners going home to home during a pandemic caused by a virus with an extremely high contagiousness and spending an hour with a (likely) elderly client? If someone were trying to come up with a nefarious and insidious way to infect many people with this virus often spread by those who are asymptomatic, that person would be hard pressed to come up with something better than this travesty of health care. And today the news breaks that the coronavirus may be spread through talking and breathing alone, without the aspiration of any droplets whatsoever. This should…