COVID-19 Diaries: Military physicians + nurses share inside look at efforts to save civilian patients in overburdened hospitals

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Thank you to all the military medical staff: doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, morticians helping their fellow countrymen/women get through this pandemic. Karen

ABC News 8/15/2020

COVID-19 Diaries: Military physicians share inside look at efforts to save civilian patients in overburdened hospitals

"It was so emotional," one hospital worker said of the troops' arrival.

Quote

...Some 740 medical and support troops have put their usual work on hold to help COVID-19 patients at overburdened civilian hospitals in California and Texas over the last month.

About 160 airmen based out of Travis Air Force Base in California are helping at eight hospitals across the state, and roughly 580 soldiers and sailors from across the country have transferred into 15 hospitals in Texas.

Among the troops are doctors, nurses and support personnel, such as pharmacists, who are helping relieve some of the burden the pandemic has placed on hospital staff....

"The very first few weeks were incredibly ill patients, incredibly busy," said Maj. Leslie Jette-Kelly, an Army doctor managing one of the hospital's five intensive care units. "We were each managing 20 to 30 patients a day, critically ill."

Army nurse 1st Lt. Colton Whitehouser said he had never seen anything like it.

"A lot of our patients, when they make it to us, it's not been the best outcomes," he said. "We're doing everything we can, but this virus, it just kind of seems to hit the whole body unlike anything we've ever seen before."...

..."This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity we have right now to help these people, a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic,...

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/covid-19-diaries-military-physicians-share-inside-efforts/story?id=72286579