A Sciotoville, Ohio father said an urgent care facility refused to see his three-year-old son in person because his wife works at a nursing home hit by COVID-19.
Matthew Preast said his little boy wasn’t feeling well, so he and his wife, Victoria, took him to the SOMC Family Health Center’s Urgent Care in Wheelersburg, Ohio. Preast said when the family arrived, a woman took their temperature at the entrance. The Preasts didn’t have a fever, but their sick little boy did. Preast said the worker then asked if they’d had contact with anyone who had COVID-19.
Preast’s wife, Victoria, works at the Best Care Nursing Home in Wheelersburg. The facility is currently dealing with an outbreak of COVID among patients and staff. According to the Ohio Department of Health, 35 of those cases are still active.
Preast said, “They told us to wait at the entrance, we waited for about five minutes. They came back and said we would have to do a tele-health conference over the phone via FaceTime.”
He Needed To Be Seen
The worried parents took their little boy home and checked his temperature again. “It was going up and he was throwing up everywhere. In my opinion, he needed to be seen.”
The worried dad said they set up the visit over FaceTime and he expressed his concern. “I told them he needed to be seen,” Preast said that’s when the facility told him they couldn’t help. “They told me since my wife has been in contact with people that tested positive with COVID, I would have to go to ER, which I did.”
Preast said when he informed staff at the Southern Ohio Medical Center Emergency Room that he was turned away from the urgent care facility, they were surprised. “They said they can not turn away a patient because they might have COVID. They must be treated like anyone else.”
The boy was treated at the ER and his dad says he’s doing much better. “My son was treated at the ER and sent home. I’m not going to let this go away. This is total BS. My son deserved the right to be treated like anyone else.”
While some nursing home workers say they’ve faced discrimination because of COVID fears, Preast says nothing like that has ever happened to his wife before. The family complained to SOMC and now say they only want one thing. “They owe my son an apology. That’s all.”
I reached out to SOMC to get some clarification about COVID-19 policies at urgent care facilities. After several unsuccessful attempts at speaking to someone by phone, I sent an email to the hospital’s Community Relations team. So far, I haven’t heard back.
