What To Do If You Have Coronavirus Symptoms (video)

Ghazala Sharieff, MD, Scripps chief medical officer, clinical excellence and experience, discusses what steps to take if you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and what Scripps is doing to help protect the health and safety of our patients, care providers and the community.

Dr. Sharieff discusses the value of telemedicine during this time and advises what you can do to protect yourself and your loved ones.

We’ve closed some of our clinics to allow more flexibility so that we can take care of you. Some closures might be anticipated coming forward as well, again to give that flexibility so that we can meet your needs. We do have telehealth available for you, which is a great option so that you can get the care that you need in the comfort of your own homes.

Telemedicine is a great way to get care. You can schedule a visit with your provider’s office. It provides great flexibility for you and also keeps you safe at home if you don't need to come into the clinic.

At Scripps we have restricted our visitor policy to no visitors unless certain circumstances exist and you can check on those. But other than that, no visitors. If you’re accompanying somebody to a clinic, we ask that you wait in the car, again to limit flow in and out of our hospital areas and clinic areas to protect all of you.

We welcome donations from the public as well. It’s a great show of support for our staff as we try to protect not only our patients but our staff and healthcare workers. We are looking for N95s, surgical masks, non-latex gloves, isolation gowns, disinfectant wipes. Anything that you can think of that would help us would be greatly appreciated. Please email us at supplychainmanagement@scrippshealth.org so we can talk to you more about how to donate.

What you can do to help us is to please follow the shelter-in-place guidelines that are out there. That’s to protect you, your families and the healthcare workers. If our healthcare workers get sick, who will take care of you?

Stay home. If you’re sick, self-quarantine yourself. Please do not come to work if you’re sick. Wash your hands frequently. If you have a cough or sneeze, use tissue. Put it in the trash. Avoid public areas if you can. Please keep yourselves healthy so that we can take care of you.

As an emergency physician, I will tell you that it’s heartbreaking to see a loved one fighting for their life on a ventilator. And I want you to think about what you can do now to help prevent that from happening. Please don’t be one of those people that looks back and thinks, "What could I have done differently?" The time for action is now. We really need your help.