DENVER — Inside Children’s Hospital Colorado, doctors know they’re treating patients who could’ve avoided ending up there.
“It’s always really challenging to see any kid sick and it’s worse when you know that something could have been done to prevent it,” said Dr. Jessica Cataldi, a Pediatrician and Infectious Disease Specialist at Children’s Hospital Colorado.
The doctors treating Colorado’s kids are seeing something in their emergency rooms they aren’t used to. More and more kids are coming to the hospital sick with diseases that are preventable with vaccines. Since the start of the pandemic, doctors say vaccine uptake has decreased.
“My biggest concern as physician is that diseases that we can prevent, and in some cases diseases that we even eliminated from the U.S. with vaccinations are coming back and are now becoming more common again,” Cataldi said.