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Posted by MountainMafia (Member # 2066) on 04-02-2020, 07:28 AM:
 
Since you are actively working in the medical field as one of "boots on the ground", what are you seeing with the spread of C-19?

I have a niece who works as a nurse in Georgetown, Ky. She said the community is making gowns for the hospital from plastic table cloths and the nurses went out and personally purchased some cheap raincoats....I could feel the anxiety and fear in her voice. Yet, even married with two young children, she goes to work every day...my hero!
 

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Posted by handycat (Member # 2323) on 04-02-2020, 09:44 AM:
 
My daughter is an RN and is the manager for hospice care for a company here in central Illinois. She went to Menards Monday and bought paper painter suits that painter’s wear as they can not get gowns. They get one mask per nurse per week. A lot of their patients are in nursing homes and most of them are limiting hospice visits to one visit per week if allowed in at all. They are even trying “telephone visits”. The primary purpose of their mission in to alleviate their patients pain or at least lessen it. In her mind a close second is to console and comfort not only the patients but the family as well. She believes they are failing miserably.

My daughter takes her job very seriously and considers this work her calling. She feels they are not providing the level of service that their patients need and require. She is extremely stressed out as I believe almost everyone in the medical field is.

I’ll be interested as what CFIY has to say if he has time to answer this. I know his area is starting to be hit hard.

[ 04-02-2020, 09:48 AM: Message edited by: handycat ]
 

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Posted by MountainMafia (Member # 2066) on 04-02-2020, 10:00 AM:
 
I mailed her the box of N95 mask I bought before the outbreak. It was a box of 20...it ain't much but it's more than she is getting anywhere else.

[ 04-02-2020, 01:44 PM: Message edited by: MountainMafia ]
 

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Posted by CatFanInYankeeville (Member # 2025) on 04-03-2020, 07:16 AM:
 
Morning, fellas. I suspect what I'm seeing is less newsworthy than what y'all are seeing on the cable boxes. My area is about 70 miles west of Chicago. It's a city of about 200,000, and when you add in the surrounding areas in the county, we're probably at about 300,000 people served by the 3 hospitals in the city I work. I work for a private ambulance service owned by one of the hospitals. We're unique in that we do the normal private ambulance stuff - taking patients back to nursing homes, transferring to higher level of care facilities, etc - but we're also contracted with a few areas to be their first call for 911 calls.

I have been in all 3 hospitals recently. I can tell you that my hospital is having very low census numbers. The ER there has 18 beds and at any one time there is probably 10 empty ones. Other ERs in the city are much the same. 2 of the hospitals in town have designated 'covid' wings set up, and the third is building theirs now. I had the unfortunate need to be in one of the covid wings with my last patient Wednesday. It's an old recovery area, small patient rooms, each has a ventilator. RNs wandering around in space suits and the doctor on duty does everything remotely. The RN wheels around a cart with a laptop thing on it, the doc sits at their desk and can interact with staff/patients without being exposed.

My department and hospital, thus far, are pretty well set on PPE. When this all started, I grabbed about a half dozen N95 respirators for myself out of central supply. I use one a shift (24 hours) and then put it at the bottom of the stack. I only work every 3rd day, so by the time that mask comes up again it's been sitting for over 2 weeks. Now mind you, we don't wear our stuff 24 hours straight, only when on a call for respiratory symptoms. So I might only wear my N95 3 or 4 hours in a day. We have face shields and eyewear, too. Those gowns are fine, but holy smokes they're hot to wear any length of time. You get drenched in sweat after about 15 minutes in them.

Every hospital has a tent set up outside. It looks kind of eerie but I've yet to see any of them really staffed. Thankfully, a lot of the nonsense folks that come to the ED for stupid things (sniffles, regular headache, stubbed toes) have stopped. I don't know if the public has learned those things are really NOT emergencies or if they're scared of catching this virus...either way, I applaud them. Our call volume is literally half or less of what it was 2 months ago.

I have one co worker who splits time on the ambulance and in the hospital working. She has all the symptoms of the virus. She was quarantined at home and thought she was recovering, but had to go into the hospital 3 nights ago for shortness of breath. She was breathing 30-40 times per minutes, and the normal range is 12-20. Fever of 102 or higher.

Hopefully we're nearing the peak of new cases of this virus. If some reports are to be believed the infection rate is finally slowing. I look for the death rate to taper off by early next week. Total deaths will continue to climb, obviously, but hopefully the daily death rate will begin to taper off. Many here are speculating we're in the 'calm before the storm'. I don't know what the future holds. I know I was finishing up nursing school but that whole process has been halted indefinitely. It's frustrating, I was hoping to be off the ambulance and working as a nurse by this fall, but that could be pushed off a year or more depending on how covid shakes out.

At any rate, hope this answers your questions. I'll happily answer any specific questions you have about where I'm at. I encourage all you old farts to stay home, wash your hands, and just try to stay away from people you don't live with. It's so easy to be a carrier of this (or any) virus and have no idea! If you want to wear a surgical mask or some kind of face covering when you go out, that's not a bad idea. Just know it's really designed for 2 things. 1) keep you from touching your nose/mouth area and 2)stop you from spreading your germs to others. It's not going to stop you from getting someone elses germs!

I appreciate y'all and your concern. Any thoughts or prayers are appreciated, this is definitely like nothing I've seen before. I've only been doing this going on 15 years, but I sure don't want to have to go through something like this again!
 

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Posted by handycat (Member # 2323) on 04-03-2020, 08:33 AM:
 
CFY, Good information. Stay safe.

You really shouldn’t call M&M an old fart. He is but we don’t want to hurt his feelings as he is very sensitive. He has never been insulted on here before.

[ 04-03-2020, 08:34 AM: Message edited by: handycat ]
 

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Posted by MountainMafia (Member # 2066) on 04-03-2020, 09:59 AM:
 
You ain't right, hc.

Thanks, CFIY...probably will touch base with you again soon...take care of yourself dude!

[ 04-03-2020, 10:02 AM: Message edited by: MountainMafia ]
 

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Posted by CatFanInYankeeville (Member # 2025) on 04-03-2020, 09:10 PM:
 
Thanks, fellas. Back to the grind tomorrow. 24 hours of rollin the dice!
 

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Posted by Old Norm (Member # 1482) on 04-03-2020, 09:32 PM:
 
CFIY: My son gave us a box of 10 N95 respirators. Do you need them?

Never mind. I just got a text from one of my best friends. His wife has been in the hospital in an induced coma. Her test results just now came back positive.

[ 04-03-2020, 09:39 PM: Message edited by: Old Norm ]
 

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Posted by Tiptree (Member # 844) on 04-03-2020, 11:12 PM:
 
Norm, very sorry to hear of your friend's wife. Prayers for her recovery.

CFIY, be careful out there. Never let your guard down, even for a moment!
 

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Posted by CatFanInYankeeville (Member # 2025) on 04-04-2020, 06:08 PM:
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Old Norm:
CFIY: My son gave us a box of 10 N95 respirators. Do you need them?

Never mind. I just got a text from one of my best friends. His wife has been in the hospital in an induced coma. Her test results just now came back positive.

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quote:

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Originally posted by m hamilton:
The NCAA Champion wasn't supposed to have been crowned until tomorrow night originally, CFIY!

I think KY is playing San Diego ST for the Championship!

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