This is scary. I want are medical folk to chime in on this one.
I'm sure some of this is true however I don't think it's right to put it all on the nurses. Folks love to make the nurse the scapegoat. Nurses do not write orders they simply carry them out. They can make suggestions but often sometimes the MD doesn't listen.
From the ICU nurses that I know that have gone to NYC it's an impossible situation. They've gone from 2 icu patients to 10 ICU patients. Or med surg nurses taking 10 to I've head as much as 16 patients because they were so short. I don't care how super nurse you are you cannot give good care trying to care for 17 patients.
Also some of the drugs she mentioned are experimental and nurses do not prescribe what drugs a patient gets and some of them are having adverse side effects causing more complications than they are helping, the most often I've heard is heart arrhythmias which can be deadly and increase the risk of patient having clots that could lead to stroke or other terrible things. I've heard the plasma infusions are doing a lot of good they are just not widely available.
I do know nurses were putting iv pumps outside the room. I did mention a few pages back that would result in less contact with the patient. In a normal setting you should be in that patient's room every hour to check those lines, to turn every 2 hours to constantly reassess a critical patient. When enough ppe is available that is ideal. But when a patient is on a precaution that requires gown, gloves, mask you need to suit up to go in and do something as simple as turn off a IV pump. I know we go against protocol sometimes and throw on some gloves and a mask to turn off a pump but people are more afraid to do that now and if while you're in there you need to actually touch the patient you are screwed if you're not properly protected.
And let's be real. These changes in protocol are coming from the top down so if we want to put the blame somewhere it starts there. Those decision makers are often not medical people at all.
Now that NYC is reporting less patients being admitted they are cancelling all that extra help they had brought in. They also said nurses and doctors could work off any state license but that order is being cancelled come May 7th where originally it had an ending date of end of June. So essentially all those temporary nurses and others there now will find themselves out of a job come May 7th if NY board doesnt process their licenses before that.
To add when the crisis first started some nurses were inflating their credentials chasing those 5k a week checks so I can see how the standard care and lack of critical thinking would be a problem. They were not checking into what skills the nurse said they had. Essentially you fill out a skills checklist and you can put anything you want. if you did a skill 1 time you could call yourself proficient if you wanted to. The goal of the staffing agencies was to get as many of their nurses up there as possible to collect them coins. Nurses from all.over were quitting their staff jobs to travel there to make that bank. The hospitals were not checking resumes and work history they were counting on the travel companies to do that for them. The hospitals were accepting pretty much anyone who submitted. Greed is what caused unskilled workers to be placed in situations they couldnt handle or had no experience in.
They were also letting senior nursing students and 4th year med students graduate early and "work". These folks are in no way, shape or form ready to take on critical patients or a heavy non critical load either.
As for cpap, bipap, cannula etc every patient is different. Sometimes you less invasive wont cut it. I hate to keep using me as an example but I had ARDS which is what a lot of C19 patients are getting. When I came off the vent the first time and onto bipap I was Struggling so bad my lungs just weren't ready. My sats quickly dropped from 80s to 30s and I had to be intubated again.
Overall from what I've heard I still think these men and women are brave heroes that can only do so much with what they have. IMO 95% of healthcare workers genuinely want to do a good job and save lives so my hat still goes off to those fighting it. I havent seen or heard stories of them sitting around twirling their thumbs.
I have heard they are not aggressively coding people and limiting how long they will run a code.
It's a sad situation all around for everyone involved. It could of been handled better absolutely.
