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I started working in Brooklyn at a level one hospital in east new york as a registered nurse to gain critical thinking skills. A level one hospital is for trauma patients i.e. gunshots, stab wounds , overdose ,schizo ,car crashes , homeless HIV ,dementia/schizo illegals, some basically living there for years in the hospital, name it I have seen it and treated it. This hospital had cardiac drips and ventilators running on med surg floors to the point where the patients were all but rotting to the bone and weeping dead ,if the family didn’t pull the plug (DNR) and believe me some didn’t.
Running a code in that hospital in Brooklyn was guaranteed at least twice a week. You don’t see that in long Island. Working in L.I was a culture shock. It was easy to the point of boredom, what these RNs do in L.I, I thought never existed, in other words it was heaven. The hardest thing for these nurses was putting in an I.V and coming out of Brooklyn that was like basic training.
I moonlighted from Brooklyn, Queens to Long Island from Oncology , ER , Tele, SICU to ICU , just for the experience and I found peace of mind on Step Down ICU. I love the pace, not too fast or slow.
I heard about the Corona Virus and watched the news, search the net for information because I saw it coming to NY. NY is one of the major arteries to the USA, 40 % of the immigrant population comes through JFK to assimilate in the NY or the wider America. I took a trip to see my parents in Florida at end of January and I was the only one wearing a mask on the plane, it raised my eyebrows that no one took it seriously, I returned in early February to work and no sign of the COVID drama.
Middle of march , I watched my patient’s signs and symptoms to see if I saw anything that mirrored what I was reading/ watching on T.V.,I saw nothing much. I was off for 4 days and came back to being floated to the ICU, to help out the new COVID arrivals, still I wasn’t worried. The ICU holds 15 patients and I basically took care of regular ICU patients that night because the supplies they had were reserved for ICU nurses trained to work with EBOLA patients ( yeah the expected pandemic under Obama that never came ).
I was off again for 4 days came back to Stepdown Intensive Care Unit(SICU). It’s a 34-patient unit that receives patient from ICU being downgraded or patients upgraded from any part of the hospital that doesn’t need intensive care. we had 5 COVID patients , that coded 4 times for the shift , the regular attending physicians were still coming in to see their patients, this still didn’t bother me ( Coded means intubated put on a drip or passed away). I felt I was back in Brooklyn mode. I was off again for a couple days and expected to come back to the same routine, if that.
I came back again , half the floor were COVID patients and I was in charge of the floor, I haven’t run so much since I left Brooklyn, 3 days on , working with ICU nurses on my floor (SICU) , patients coding twice per shifts with limited supplies, dwindling gowns, gloves and masks. It didn’t hit me when I saw the old guy/woman on a vent , raised my eye brows when I saw the young girls/ guys on vents and jolted me, when a big strapping 40 y.o plus guy starting frothing pink stuff and I touched him to insert an I.V and he felt like slimy ice, that this virus isn’t normal. I was shook !
I was off again and came back to my 34 bed unit, flooded with COVID patients, this isn’t normal. 250 - 350 bed hospital has an ICU unit that holds 7 to 15 patients, My hospital had three times that, 2 floors with 34 plus Vented patients , supplies are rationed , mask to last a weak, gown re-used , face mask re-used , googles re-used. It’s to the point where staff are buying their own protective equipment(PPE). Every regular medsurg floor has at least 6 COVID patients with the ventilated ones reserved for SICU and ICU.
The attendings don’t show up anymore. The codes are not run any more like the standard code. They say it’s like a war, well kinda except in a war, you go all out to save your own people. This virus denies you that. Hospitals are being run by trauma physicians, NPS and PAs,in other words standard medicine isn’t being practiced, its trauma medicine where one of the tenets is save supplies, staff/self, 1st so you can save others that the trauma chief deems saveable .
In a trauma situation you are supposed give CPR( cardio -pulmonary (lung) chest compression - resuscitation) in a code . The fact that this virus is droplet and airborne, how can I say it, given the lack of PPE, CPR ,is now Cardio- Resuscitation. Use your imagination.
The hardest /saddest part of all this , is these patients are dying alone , families call all day because no one can visit the hospital and physicians are too busy dealing with this virus to call anyone.
Infection control is out the window, meaning every clinician, physician, PA, NP, Nurse has been in contact with that virus because of low or no supply( I call it rolling in mud ), staffing is at a low because of sick calls or scared calls. If we don’t get supplies in a week or two, we have lost this battle and I don’t see how we stop it for another year, especially given these moronic Midwest/southern states lack of shutting down. Personally I think we all (the staff) have built up an immunity to it, thank the lord no one ended up on a Vent.
If it’s like this in L.I , then its ten times worse in queens, BK, Bronx and Manhattan. Nursing homes are incubation centers in my opinion.
Until NY controls this virus and the rest of the states follows N.Y lead ,it will be raging like a wildfire, popping up and blazing at every opportunity, until everyone gets the message.
Lock the ****ing nation down.
Running a code in that hospital in Brooklyn was guaranteed at least twice a week. You don’t see that in long Island. Working in L.I was a culture shock. It was easy to the point of boredom, what these RNs do in L.I, I thought never existed, in other words it was heaven. The hardest thing for these nurses was putting in an I.V and coming out of Brooklyn that was like basic training.
I moonlighted from Brooklyn, Queens to Long Island from Oncology , ER , Tele, SICU to ICU , just for the experience and I found peace of mind on Step Down ICU. I love the pace, not too fast or slow.
I heard about the Corona Virus and watched the news, search the net for information because I saw it coming to NY. NY is one of the major arteries to the USA, 40 % of the immigrant population comes through JFK to assimilate in the NY or the wider America. I took a trip to see my parents in Florida at end of January and I was the only one wearing a mask on the plane, it raised my eyebrows that no one took it seriously, I returned in early February to work and no sign of the COVID drama.
Middle of march , I watched my patient’s signs and symptoms to see if I saw anything that mirrored what I was reading/ watching on T.V.,I saw nothing much. I was off for 4 days and came back to being floated to the ICU, to help out the new COVID arrivals, still I wasn’t worried. The ICU holds 15 patients and I basically took care of regular ICU patients that night because the supplies they had were reserved for ICU nurses trained to work with EBOLA patients ( yeah the expected pandemic under Obama that never came ).
I was off again for 4 days came back to Stepdown Intensive Care Unit(SICU). It’s a 34-patient unit that receives patient from ICU being downgraded or patients upgraded from any part of the hospital that doesn’t need intensive care. we had 5 COVID patients , that coded 4 times for the shift , the regular attending physicians were still coming in to see their patients, this still didn’t bother me ( Coded means intubated put on a drip or passed away). I felt I was back in Brooklyn mode. I was off again for a couple days and expected to come back to the same routine, if that.
I came back again , half the floor were COVID patients and I was in charge of the floor, I haven’t run so much since I left Brooklyn, 3 days on , working with ICU nurses on my floor (SICU) , patients coding twice per shifts with limited supplies, dwindling gowns, gloves and masks. It didn’t hit me when I saw the old guy/woman on a vent , raised my eye brows when I saw the young girls/ guys on vents and jolted me, when a big strapping 40 y.o plus guy starting frothing pink stuff and I touched him to insert an I.V and he felt like slimy ice, that this virus isn’t normal. I was shook !
I was off again and came back to my 34 bed unit, flooded with COVID patients, this isn’t normal. 250 - 350 bed hospital has an ICU unit that holds 7 to 15 patients, My hospital had three times that, 2 floors with 34 plus Vented patients , supplies are rationed , mask to last a weak, gown re-used , face mask re-used , googles re-used. It’s to the point where staff are buying their own protective equipment(PPE). Every regular medsurg floor has at least 6 COVID patients with the ventilated ones reserved for SICU and ICU.
The attendings don’t show up anymore. The codes are not run any more like the standard code. They say it’s like a war, well kinda except in a war, you go all out to save your own people. This virus denies you that. Hospitals are being run by trauma physicians, NPS and PAs,in other words standard medicine isn’t being practiced, its trauma medicine where one of the tenets is save supplies, staff/self, 1st so you can save others that the trauma chief deems saveable .
In a trauma situation you are supposed give CPR( cardio -pulmonary (lung) chest compression - resuscitation) in a code . The fact that this virus is droplet and airborne, how can I say it, given the lack of PPE, CPR ,is now Cardio- Resuscitation. Use your imagination.
The hardest /saddest part of all this , is these patients are dying alone , families call all day because no one can visit the hospital and physicians are too busy dealing with this virus to call anyone.
Infection control is out the window, meaning every clinician, physician, PA, NP, Nurse has been in contact with that virus because of low or no supply( I call it rolling in mud ), staffing is at a low because of sick calls or scared calls. If we don’t get supplies in a week or two, we have lost this battle and I don’t see how we stop it for another year, especially given these moronic Midwest/southern states lack of shutting down. Personally I think we all (the staff) have built up an immunity to it, thank the lord no one ended up on a Vent.
If it’s like this in L.I , then its ten times worse in queens, BK, Bronx and Manhattan. Nursing homes are incubation centers in my opinion.
Until NY controls this virus and the rest of the states follows N.Y lead ,it will be raging like a wildfire, popping up and blazing at every opportunity, until everyone gets the message.
Lock the ****ing nation down.
Paul Marin -19 is one thing, 20 is a whole other matter. It gets even worse if they win the UCL. *groan*. 
05/18/2011.MU fans naah cough, but all a unuh a vomit?-Lazie 1/11/2015
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