Yesterday, husband came off his 10 day rotation of patients with COVID-19. Today he is back at work with non-COVID positive patients. Here is how things went down a thread (...or what I call, a paragraph broken down 😐)1/
Prior to the start of his 10 day rotation of #COVID19 only, he was dealing with ‘potential’ COVID cases, but they weren’t testing anyone until everything else was ruled out. This was due to a shortage testing kits and absence of protocols 2/
So while all the symptoms matched up, few were being diagnosed as few were being tested 3/
If you didn't diagnose patients, city’s COVID count wasn’t going up in late February and early March, giving a false picture of the area 4/
Also, because the patients weren’t 'diagnosed', docs & nurses were not given proper #PPE (just gloves&surgical masks). Of course, they then came in contact with other healthcare workers without any protection, AND they also went to their homes to their parents &kids &partners 5/
During that period of #PPEShortages and absence of protocol, nurses and doctors were doing what they individually thought best. Many of the patients from that time period went on to test positive on my husband’s service 6/
One thing that was glaring was the lack of federal or statewide protocols as the virus spread. Each hospital system seemed to reinventing the wheel based off whatever information they could gather. Where was the #CDC in mandating protocols? It was UNDERFUNDED & undermined! 7/
After much valuable time, admin finally said treat all patients as if they r positive. BUT none of docs or nurses were tested. In fact even today, with #ICU & floor full of +cases, #HealthCareWorkers won't be tested unless they feel so terrible that they need to be admitted 8/
So, yes, even though they have been in direct contact with patients with patients that tested positive, they will not be tested if they have symptoms of COVID-19. They are asked to simply self-quarantine 9/
The hospital does want to (pay) and cannot afford to furlough healthcare workers who might be positive! Workforce needed over worker's lives 10/
So now that the hospital policy finally kicked in at the end of March to treat each patient as a +case of COVID-19, you would think that meant PPE? It didn’t. My husband who was on COVID only service had to reuse his #N95 mask (and goggles) every day 11/
He was lucky he even had one. Other staff who are treating patients who have not been ruled out yet, only have regular surgical masks 12/
Yesterday, my husband lost a patient to the virus. He was heartbroken. Not just because the guy died, or even because he died without having any family by his side, or because he was fully lucid and functional two days back 13/
Husband was completely devastated because they didn’t have enough respirators and patient was too high risk to be allotted one 14/
I don’t want to pile on and say #StayHomeSaveLives Yes, of course, #StayHome (if you can) 15/
But this is a clearest picture America will ever have of how market solutions DO NOT work when basics rights and life necessities are concerned 16/
The government had fired the U.S. pandemic response team in 2018 to cut costs. That cost us lives and livelihoods. We must fund and direct policy by listening to our scientists 17/
Tying healthcare to our jobs or to us falling within some arbitrary income criteria is absurd. We need #UniversalHealthcare (if you want to talk about costs for that, this pandemic is costing plenty..to the economy, the stock market, and to regular folk’s livelihoods) 18/
This pandemic makes it clear that transit workers and truck drivers and grocery store workers and garbage removal staff are essential workers. We need to pay a livable wage 19/
When it comes to medications, ventilators, PPE, demand&supply doesn’t always work. State should have used #DefenseProductionAct to direct PPE production in February! Moreover, pharma is funded in part by tax payers but they charge us a ton to supply it back to us 20/
How can it be the ‘most powerful’ country militarily and economically is fairing so terribly in managing this crisis? Have ‘we’ been delusional about our country’s might ( I put ‘we’ in quotes, cuz some of us always knew) 21/
Wake up America. We need structural change! 22/22
You can follow @PeriferlyCentrd.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: