With permission, we are sharing this first-hand account from a doctor currently practicing at Morristown Hospital in Morris County, NJ. READ THIS and SHARE. #CoronaVirusUpdates

Written by a doctor at Morristown Memorial April 22, 2020:

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Written by a doctor at Morristown Memorial April 22, 2020:

Hey everyone,

Several of you have checked in on me and have asked for another update. Here it is. Just to warn you, this update is completely unfiltered firsthand insight into the front lines. 2/

It might be a little hard to read…

The good news:

The total number of Atlantic Health System (Morristown is one of five hospitals under this health system) hospital patients with Covid 19 transitioned to recovery and discharged as of today, 4/21, is 1,380. Woohoooo!!! 3/

Total number of patients with Covid 19 discharged on any given day in Morristown is about twenty. Every time a patient is discharged, a clip from the song by the Beatles "Here Comes the Sun" is played in the entire hospital on the overhead system. 4/

This is meant to attempt to uplift and make the hospital staff smile a little.

The bad news:

Everyone is dying. Almost everyone getting put on ventilators is dying. The media is making it sound like we're over the hump. We might be, but the death toll is skyrocketing. 5/

My current main role and what I do all day is place central lines and arterial lines in the sickest patients who get placed on the ventilators. A central line is a twenty centimeter catheter that I sterilely place into the jugular vein in the neck of these patients which goes 6/

straight down into the heart; it allows the nurses to give very powerful, life-saving medications that are delivered straight into the heart. An arterial line is another catheter that again is placed sterilely in the radial artery in the wrist of these patients for accurate 7/

blood pressure measurements and to make sure the patients are getting enough oxygen in their blood. These are surgical procedures that only the chief surgical residents are performing, and it is a full time job. I worked fifty-two hours straight this weekend from Friday 8/

morning to Sunday late morning. Saturday morning, between 6am and 3pm, I placed nine central line/arterial line combinations on nine patients. One after another after another. One of those patients was my buddy and good friend, Charles, a tech at Morristown who I've known 9/

for five years. He contracted Covid six days ago, deteriorated, was placed on a ventilator, and went into kidney failure. Charles died Sunday night. He's not the only one I've known. A patient transporter died last week. One of our ER doctors died this weekend. 10/

Just found out another chief resident's grandma contracted Covid. She's 88, & just got put on hospice. She'll be dead in 48 hours. 40% (forty!) of the nurses at Overlook Medical Center, a hospital in Summit I work at sometimes, are Covid positive; some are at home with cough 11/

& fever, some are in the hospital on ventilators, & many have died. Bottom line is if you get put on a ventilator, it is very hard to get these patients to breathe on their own again, and if you're still on the ventilator after one or two weeks, you're probably going to die. 12/

My day consists of coming to work, seeing my surgical patients, some Covid and some not, and getting them squared away by 8am so I can do central lines and arterial lines all day long. At the end of the day, before I go home, I go to my quiet office and call the families 13/

of the patients who have died that day, anywhere from two to nine patients depending on the day. I tell them their loved one fought hard and we did everything we could. I answer their questions. I do the best I can over the phone. There is no closure. The families don't get 14/

2b w loved ones before they die. They don't get to hug them or hold their hands. They die alone in their hospital room, on the ventilator, gasping for air that isn't there. It's horrible, depressing, & has happened to regular ppl like us who are just trying to stay healthy. 15/

On a separate note, I am physically healthy and doing my absolute best to stay that way, so don't worry. This message is not about me. This message is just to give you a little window into the life of a healthcare worker and what we are all going through. You may read this 16/

and think, "what can I do to help?" The best thing you can do is protect yourself and protect your families. Keep doing what you've been doing and avoid the temptation to let up because it's not safe. We are not out of the woods. Keep on being safe and staying home. 17/

Keep yelling at your parents when they try to break free & leave the house. If you have friends/know people that r going out, be a good friend & reason with them. Show them this post if you have to. Whatever it takes. Love you all. Stay safe. I'm always here for you. Always. 18/

*NOTE: Message slightly changed to fit character limits eg. "2b" for "to be".

ATNJ's volunteers are thankful for all of our frontline workers doing their jobs to save so many lives at the risk of their own and that of their family. Spread the word to #StayAtHome /end