Providers as sick vectors: WaPo article
As a nurse, what’s frustrating about a heavy caseload is fearing that I could be a source of harm to my patients. Particularly in the ICU, where patients are so fragile, I would worry over handwashing and proper gowning and gloving. Was I doing enough? The pressure of tasks builds up. A new admit and a change in orders and a STAT lab and a visiting family needing updates…all these urgencies lined up like racehorses in a starting gate while I tried to focus on properly protecting the patient in the room I’m about to enter. Maybe a transplant patient. Have I removed all microbial trace of the neighbor with MRSA, VRE, C. diff? It always, even on the best days, felt like I was so dangerous to my patients. That is exactly why nurses quit, strike, burn out, and speak out: we do not want to endanger out patients.
This Washington Post article from 3/17/20 will feel very familiar to clinic and hospital providers. We are the most at risk for contracting this novel virus, likely to suffer from COVID-19 in disproportionate numbers. In our fractured health care system where the majority of workers are not covered by any union, we are fully at the mercy of employers and government agencies for protection. PPE standards vary by site, though supplies run out, clinicians will not. Exposed workers will continue to work until sick because that is company policy, and workers are, even prior to this calamity, both in short supply and treated as disposable. Use ‘em up. We’ll become direct vectors passing along the virus, and continue to expose ourselves case after case.
It’s not the getting sick that we’re afraid of, it’s exposing the people we give our lives to help: our patients.
This virus will proceed along its course like the force of nature it is, and I have little hope for improved conditions for anyone in direct patient care at this time. But bear it in mind, these thoughts of nurses and doctors and technicians, for what in the future we can change to better serve our patients and ourselves.