Example of the day: A colleague of mine has a family member who is a pediatric critical care nurse. The hospital has no PAPRS and a limited supply of N95 respirators.
The nurses are being told to use surgical masks 😱 in the ICU to care for COVID patients and only use N95s when doing aerosol generating procedures.
My colleague had some N95s at home and gave them to his daughter-in-law to use and gave her the CDC guidance on reuse and extended use. He also stressed that they NEED a spotter to observe them donning and doffing their PPE—the most dangerous part is when they remove the PPE.
He provided her all the info on proper donning and doffing and gave her instructions on what she should not be bringing into the hospital when she goes to work (as few personal items as possible and change clothes upon arriving and change clothes before heading home).
That nurse is now ready and can share all this information with other nursing staff at her hospital. It doesn’t matter how many more ventilators or beds we add if we do not first protect those healthcare workers fighting on the frontlines of this battle—especially our ICU staff.
