🧵Busy night. Several sick patients and many of them were hypoxic from COVID. Several intubations. Imagine your mother, father, brother, or sister lifeless on a breathing machine and getting a call from ME at 4 in the morning to tell you they are on a breathing machine. 1/6
No one ever thinks COVID is going to affect them, until it eventually does. But COVID is rapidly sweeping through households in underserved communities who can't physically distance in small apartments. 2/6
4,331 new cases this morning. Patients are waiting hours for ICU beds because there are only 175 beds in Arizona. Same story nationwide. "Sorry doc, we have no room in our ICUs, Is the patient COVID or non-covid? Send the COVID test and let us know" 3/6
I saw an alert in my inbox about a positive COVID test for a patient I admitted days ago. I scrolled through the chart to see how he was doing and was prompted with, "You are entering the chart of a deceased patient" 4/6
I remember our conversation at bedside, "Doc I feel fine, I have some fevers and chills, but otherwise okay" ... "You're not hypoxic, but let's admit you for 24 hours to make sure everything is okay" I replied. He slowly decompensated over the next days and died. 5/6
I hate this virus and the fact that nothing is being done to stop its deadly spread. 2,000 people are dying a day. Think about that! /end
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🧵NO ICU BEDS! When our rural Arizona hospital ICU is full, we medevac patients to different hospitals across the state, BUT NOT TONIGHT, because there were NO ACCEPTING HOSPITALS, so for an entire 12 hour shift we managed ICU patients, while treating other emergencies. 1/13
There was one patient MEDEVACED via helicopter with head trauma to another hospital who needed a neurosurgeon, not to an ICU b/c there were no beds, but to an emergency room where they were taken care of by another ER physician until a NEURO ICU bed opened up. 2/13
Where are these 175 available ICU beds in Arizona, b/c for a rural hospital not to find accepting hospitals is problematic. SHOW ME which hospitals have beds that are STAFFED with nurses, because a bed WITHOUT a nurse is like a plane WITHOUT a pilot – USELESS 3/13
⚠️dead at 34
Amber Vasquez was a nurse in Dallas Texas who died from COVID because @GovAbbott failed to enact public health measures. Her body was irreversibly damaged by the virus. Let's ensure her family gets death benefits for her sacrifice. gofundme.com/f/xemd3z-amber…
⚠️dead at 49
Patrice Grossman, NICU nurse with Intermountain Healthcare, Utah died from COVID19. She is survived by her husband and 5 kids. abc4.com/news/utah-coun…
🧵A LETTER TO @dougducey and @GOP governors who fail to lead and listen to frontline healthcare providers!! You are KILLING US!!! You sit in your ivory tower, taunt the virus, ignore public health measures & attack the Affordable Care Act, while we die on the frontlines. 1/9
There are only 184 ICU beds and 931 inpatient beds (⚠️new record) left in Arizona! Even worse, we can't even use those beds because our healthcare workers are SICK and calling out. 53 ICU beds opened up yesterday, but tragically because 53 people DIED!!! 2/9
As the virus sweeps across hospitals infecting staff, even non-covid hospitalized patients are getting infected, similar to the nosocomial spread in assisted living facilities nationwide. 3/9 ktar.com/story/3704314/…
🧵Today, I admitted 6 hypoxic patients with COVID and the waiting room was packed when I left my shift. Arizona had 3,206 new infections & 53 deaths. Nationwide, today was the DEADLIEST day of the pandemic with 1,869 deaths & 164,000 new infections 1/9
"Your loved one is really sick and has a high probability of dying," I said a few hours into my shift. Same outcome, different day, different family. Farmworker, grandmother, Native American, Latino, snowbirds.. they all blend together 2/9
Nurses, ER docs, Respiratory Techs, ICU docs, Janitors, Hospitalists etc.. were all pawns in an attack against public health by politicians scared to step inside a hospital, while the virus sickens us. We already have colleagues sick with COVID, so we scramble to cover shifts 3/9
🧵I wish you could see what I see every day. Loved ones crying at the bedside of their family members struggling to breathe despite maximum oxygen. The look in their eyes when I tell them, there is a high probability their loved one might die despite being on a ventilator. 1/8
A 90 year old is not going to survive chest compressions resulting in sternum and rib fractures, if their heart stops beating. There is also a very low likelihood of elderly patients in their 80s getting off a ventilator if intubated for COVID. 2/8
I know holidays are near, but the pandemic is here. I'm not trying to be a downer, but please have these discussions with your elderly family members before the time comes in an emergency room. 3/8 harborlighthospice.com/blog/what-is-a…