Coronavirus In Colorado: Doctors Worry About Three 'Ps': Pandemic, PPE And Pay Cuts

DENVER (CBS4) - When Dr. Comilla Sasson gets home from a shift in the emergency department, she does something that hurts her heart; she tells her two young children, ages 3 and 5, they can't hug mommy.

"I don't let my kids hug or kiss me right now because I don't want them to get sick. It breaks my heart every night," said Sasson.

She works in emergency rooms at three Colorado hospitals and says she is experiencing anxiety and fear over contracting coronavirus and passing it on to her family.

"I do the job I do because I want to take care of other people but it's hard for me to think I could be putting my family at risk because of the work I do," said Sasson, who has been an emergency physician for 17 years.

When interviewed Wednesday by CBS4, she said,"I can tell you in the last 24 hours I have had three friends in the emergency department who have been diagnosed positive with COVID-19 who are doctors."

RELATED: Latest Updates On The Coronavirus Outbreak In Colorado

She said the three doctors work in three different hospital systems.

Sasson has taken to living in her basement, separate from her family, in an attempt to minimize the risk.

Professionally, she has other worries, telling CBS4 that patients in extreme medical distress are now refusing to go to emergency rooms, afraid that they will contract coronavirus.

"And they're afraid to go because they think the risk of getting coronavirus is higher than potentially what could happen if they stayed at home and took their chances."

She cites a patient who she was recently talking to who said they were experiencing chest pains and shortness of breath and might have been suffering a heart attack.

Sasson told them to immediately call 911 and go the emergency room.

"That person was adamant they would stay at home rather than go to the emergency department and get COVID."

She said patients experiencing severe symptoms of potential strokes or heart attacks need to go to the ER where health care professionals are doing everything they can to keep coronavirus patients separated from other patients. Sasson said she is unsure of what happened to the patient who refused to go to the ER.

Sasson said a shortage of PPE -- personal protective equipment -- still plagues some hospitals and health care workers, along with pay cuts.

Some hospitals and health care systems around the country have announced pay and benefit cuts for doctors and nurses. With elective surgeries out of the picture, short-term profits are dropping.

Dr. Jane Jenab, a Denver-based emergency room physician, termed the cuts "shameful." She said "This is almost reverse hazard pay. We are the ones most at risk and we are the ones having our pay slashed."

Thursday afternoon, HealthOne, a major health care provider and hospital operator, employing 11,000 employees in the Denver area, announced what it called Pandemic Pay Continuation, which it said was aimed at protecting financial security for frontline caregivers.

Angie Anania, a company spokesperson, told CBS4, "Our biggest goal is to keep people working."

The company said workers with reduced hours maybe be redeployed so they can keep working. Those who cannot be redeployed will be paid 70% of their base pay for up to seven weeks. After that, it's unclear what will happen to those employees but Anania said the company was doing all it could to avoid furloughs. She said she did not know how many workers might face the 30% pay cut, as the number continually fluctuates.

HealthOne said it was also taking other measures to assist its workers including:

• Paying 100%  base salary for workers in patient care facilities who are quarantined regardless of where the exposure took place.
• Laundering scrubs for workers who care for COVID-19 patients so they don't risk carrying the virus home on their clothing.
• Working with major hotel chains to obtain free housing for caregivers who care for coronavirus patients and do not want to go home to loved ones after their shift.

As for Dr. Sasson, she said not being able to hug and kiss her kids is "Heartbreaking. There's no other word for it."