Woman arrested for filming nearly empty hospital in the UK
https://twitter.com/i/status/1344298301051568131
Folks I know who work in supposedly "overwhelmed" hospitals in the US are telling me similar stories.
Woman arrested for filming nearly empty hospital in the UK
https://twitter.com/i/status/1344298301051568131
Folks I know who work in supposedly "overwhelmed" hospitals in the US are telling me similar stories.
4 comments:
Email from a friend of mine who is a paramedic for London Ambulance Service:
"At 8pm we have already taken 7,000 emergency calls - with physical 999 calls coming it at 500 per hour for the first time ever.
Crews are exhausted.
Hospitals are full (meaning long handover delays).
1/3 of the workforce have had a first vaccine shot, but that is not enough.
More of our staff are dying.
We are now letting people crew ambulances with little more than a first aid certificate. We have resurrected vehicles from wherever we can get them from.... (over 500 running at peak, but still not enough)."
I've known him for years, duck and hog hunted with him, and have no reason to doubt his statements. So it seems that there is conflicting information, making it difficult to decide what to think.
I work at one of those overwhelmed facilities in the US. We have had zero ICU beds available for weeks since we are full, and when patients die or improve enough to move out of ICU, as soon as the room is cleaned the bed is filled again.
We've had many days where our ER was on diversion because they are holding ICU patients and too full to take anything else. If you walk in we are up to hours in wait times due to this and lack of staff.
14 ICU nurses were called off with covid in one night.
We get multiple calls daily from out of state looking for ICU beds for patients. And we make those calls ourselves. Last Saturday we called all five surrounding states trying to find an ICU bed. And we got a call from western OK looking for one and I was told by the caller that he'd found one in Nebraska the day before so he thought he'd try there again. Nebraska. From Oklahoma. To find a bed for a sick patient.
Oh, and one of those nurses who was sent home with covid? Gave it to her husband before she realized she had it. He's spent the last three weeks on a ventilator and they withdrew care yesterday because all of his organs were failing.
She is one of the most precise and careful people I know. I am quite certain she followed procedures and was very careful. And her husband is dead anyway.
Oh, and we do have a couple of closed floors. Because we have pulled the staff to work elsewhere. They are filling in on other floors where nurses are out with covid, or helping out in the ICU (even though they are not specifically trained for that equipment or type of patient).
We aren't doing most surgeries because PACU is being used as extra ICU beds.
So, yes, we have empty units. But without the staff I expect care would suffer.
INteresting.
Post a Comment