I have a good friend who’s sister is a doctor in NYC. She has a colleague who just wrote the following and it’s a good first hand account of life in that battleground right now ...
Quote:
I don't really post much about my life in the hospital on social media. But with everything happening in the media regarding COVID19, I feel compelled to speak up. I have been working in the medical ICU this week and it has been an emotionally taxing week for a few main reasons.
First of all, this virus is nowhere near slowing down yet and the curve has yet to flatten. We are getting 7-8 ICU admissions MINIMUM each day. We are taking over every area in the hospital capable of supporting critically ill patients to ensure that we can do everything possible for our patients with severe respiratory distress. And that number isn't going to slow down. This virus will frequently become much worse before you even have a hope of getting better. We have just as many, if not more, people being admitted to the hospital in critical condition as we do people who have already been admitted for 2, 3, 4+ days in non-critical settings becoming acutely worse. Even if patients stopped coming to the hospital today, we would continue to spread our resources simply taking care of the patients that are already here.
Second, and just importantly, we are not able to save everyone. This virus is deadly and do not let anyone undermine that fact. It is incredibly heartbreaking to call someone, often my age or younger, to let them know their mom or dad have expired. It is equally heartbreaking to call the parents of these patients and tell them that despite our very best efforts, their adult children are still getting worse and may expire imminently. And to make matters worse, you just remember that patients aren't allowed visitors, so their family members are being told over the phone that over the course of a week, their 100% healthy loved ones developed respiratory failure, often kidney failure, and eventual cardiovascular collapse.
Third, we do not have the resources to take care of everyone. It is the unfortunate truth that when the ICU is called about patients in their high 80s and 90s who developed severe respiratory failure, we have to make a tough decision. Patients in that age that have severe symptoms (and that's not to say all patients in that age range will have severe symptoms, but many do and will), it is a near 100% mortality. We have to ask ourselves if it's worth the extremely minimal chance of eventual recovery of putting these patients on full respiratory support, support that will likely eventually be needed to take care of a patient 40-50 years their junior that has a higher chance of recovery? And sadly the answer is no. And at that point we will do everything to take care of these elderly patients in the means of keeping them comfortable but to be extremely aggressive would mean sacrificing other lives with minimal hope of saving any lives at all.
And lastly, there is not yet any miracle treatment. There are numerous medications that might (and a strong emphasis on the might) be helpful in expediting recovery. But none of them at this time can truthfully say that they work; there are promising reports, but there are no large studies to confirm this. And from what I've been seeing in the ICU, if they do work it is only in a small portion of cases and it is unclear if it was the medication or simply the bodies own immune system that is helping to clear the disease To complicate this fact, there is a shortage on almost all these medications, and there are populations of patients which cannot be started on some of these medications due to other health issues. So if you get sick, there absolutely is NOT any guaranteed treatment to make you better. We have had patients on multiple of these medications who continually get worse.
What I'm trying to say is STAY AT HOME. And if you decide that you're too good for that, just understand that you are risking the lives of every person you are in contact with, including your parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, and even your children. Think about that.
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