I have been a nurse for 13 years—I specialize in critical care and even worked as a medevac flight nurse—and this pandemic is by far the worst thing I’ve experienced in my career.I arrive at work at 6:45 each morning and count the confirmed positive COVID-19 patients listed on our staffing board.
Currently, our 30 bed ICU unit is full of COVID-19 patients, and we have opened up off-site ICUs where we have 4 patients so far.
Almost all of our patients are on mechanical ventilation and are extremely ill, and in need of very high levels of critical care.
The number of admissions to the ICU is almost double what we would see on a normal day.Staffing at our hospital has survived so far, but as we open additional ICU beds in off-site areas, many.