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Lmao y’all want some tea? Here it goes: I work at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, MO. More specifically, on the COVID unit. We were asked to transition into COVID only back in March/April and as a group we accepted. Ready to face the pandemic head on.
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Things went well at first, most of the patients we got were pretty stable, nothing major. Over the course of the past couple of months people have been coming in sicker and sicker. We’ve had a few deaths, do y’all know how scary it must be to die alone? Fucking hell.
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Anyways, the nurses and doctors have done an excellent job at managing the patients and trying to stay ahead of it all. Where we have failed, has been the type of care we can provide. We are hardly staffed adequately, and as patients become increasingly critical
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Even having the right amount of staff for the patient load is not enough. Despite all of this, we have managed to provide the best patient care possible to all of the patients we have seen. Things are starting to get bad though, with the increasing cases from MO State
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It seems like it’s only a matter of time before the hospitals here are flooded with sick students and university staff. Not to mention the general public, many of which do not believe this is all real. Especially the surrounding areas that do not have mask mandates.
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Getting back to hospital related things, can y’all guess how many times we’ve been tested for COVID since we transitioned? 5 times? 3 times? Once? Nah fam, we haven’t been tested a single time. Leadership denied us regular testing because there wouldn’t be enough
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Tests for the people who really needed them. Ideally this would make sense, you know? Monitor for symptoms, keep everyone isolated to the same floor, etc. But there’s a problem, a glaring one at that. The whole hospital is short staffed, so people from our floor
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The COVID floor might I remind you, are being floated to other floors, thus exposing others to COVID. This hasn’t been an issue as no one has had any symptoms and none of the patients or staff on other floors have come up positive. That is until a couple of days ago.
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I won’t say too many details but what you guys can guess would happen with coworkers not being tested and floating to other floors happened. This means one of our coworkers who has floated is asymptomatic and infected someone else.
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That’s fucking scary. Even after that the word on testing us regularly is still a moot point. Even after coworkers have fallen ill with the virus, they still refuse to test us. Like wtf? This is bullshit. We need to be tested. Regularly.
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Now that you guys are all caught up this brings us to tonight. Originally we were told that we would be capped at 16 patients. As volume increased, so did the patient load, it is 22 now. Or at least it was. See, all of the rooms are negative pressure.
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Meaning that the air inside the room stays there. This is essential because when oxygen requirements are high, the virus becomes airborne. This isn’t anything new, it happens with other diseases too. All of the rooms are private,even the ones that are able to have 2 patients
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Why are the double rooms private you might ask? Well a reason is to be able to take off PPE safely at a distance of at least 6 feet so our scrubs don’t come into contact with the patient or any surfaces that might have the virus on them.
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Filling those double rooms would make less space for safely taking off PPE. Plus the cleaning and sterilizing process cannot be fully carried out upon discharge of one of the patients from the double rooms as there is a whole procedure that requires the room to be empty
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Despite all of this, and our short staffing, we are being asked to take on more patients, fill up the double rooms. This is insane. On top of that, patients who aren’t very sick run the risk of being placed with a patient who is very sick. 15/?
The hospital does have other floors/rooms to move COVID patients to if this were to happen. There are plans that were talked about to expand the capacity for these patients but when we need them to be put in action, they can’t. 16/?
Now I understand there are no easy solutions to the problems we’re facing with COVID, and that leadership is doing the best they can, but you’d expect things to be a little more concrete and ready to do once what they have planned for happens.
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Things are starting to get worse, and come winter it’ll be horrible. This shit is not a joke and it’s so sad to see a lot of you out at bars and parties. Living life like there’s not a fucking pandemic going on. It’s been said a million times, but literally
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Stay the fuck home. Everything experts have been telling us is true and just because we aren’t an epicenter, yet, doesn’t mean y’all can just do whatever the fuck you want to do. They’re experts for a reason. Idc about your favorite bar, party, sorority, club, church group
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That you want to be a part of. Nothing is more important than staying safe before things really hit the fan all over the country. Take it from me, who sees this disease on a regular basis and has seen what it can do first hand.
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Lastly, I will try to draft an email that you guys can send to our leadership team asking for them to test their coworkers on the COVID floor. We started a petition at work and it was signed by all of us and the doctors who work with us too, but still nothing. 21/?
Stay safe, wear your mask, wash your hands, and if you’re a religious person, pray for an end to this pandemic and for those working and coming into contact with people everyday. For the students having to go to school as well.
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PS: the leadership I’m referring to are the top brass for Mercy Springfield communities, not my direct managers/supervisors. They are all great and are fighting hard for us so we can have our needs met as staff and individuals.
