The advice to “stay home” should not be heeded if you have chest pains or other signs of a heart attack, warns Hadassah Medical Center cardiologist Gabby Elbaz Greener.

“We mustn’t let the fear of the coronavirus kill us indirectly,” says Dr. Elbaz Greener. “If you don’t feel well, please don’t delay. Go to the hospital and get medical attention.”

In recent weeks, there have been cases of people who hesitated to come to Hadassah’s hospitals because of the pandemic. “These patients, young and old,” Dr. Elbaz Greener says, “arrived in serious condition and suffered permanent damage because they failed to come at the right time.”

At Hadassah, every effort is made to ensure coronavirus patients are kept separate from other patients—initially in different emergency rooms and then in separate buildings. Cardiac patients are cared for in the Sarah Wetsman Davidson Hospital Tower, and the COVID-19 patients are hospitalized in the Round Building.

“We at Hadassah don’t want to see any ‘collateral damage’ because of people’s hesitation,” said Elbaz Greener.

For both men and women, the most common sign of a heart attack is chest pain. But women may also experience pain in the jaw, shoulder, or back, dizziness, and unusual fatigue.

Patients who are experiencing a heart attack are taken directly to Hadassah’s catheterization laboratory in the Irma and Paul Milstein Heart Center, with its dedicated Silagi Cardiac Intensive Care Unit.