Covid and Hospitals: How are things now?

[CrunchRN]

Just curious. Here in DFW I see hospitalizations are rising to 14%. How are things in the hospitals? Are things relatively normal? No more furloughs?

Please share. I am not in acute care, but I am of course very interested in the effects on acute care staff.

[toomuchbaloney]

I wish that I felt guilty about early retirement...but I don't.  I do have lots of empathy for my peers currently suffering under the weight of this pandemic.  

So much of this could have been avoided with actual leadership from the oval office. 

[ladycody, BSN, RN]

On 10/25/2020 at 1:19 PM, ladycody said:

We are up... not to where we were in the Spring...but we went from virtually covid free for almost 2 months to seeing it regularly again.  I sadly don't think it is just a temporary blip...but am hoping with fingers and toes crossed.

Yeah... update.  Our hospital is now up 50% over our Spring numbers and has been holding there for almost a month...another nearby hospital has doubled their numbers...and our staffing is abysmal.  ?

 

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

Not good. 

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

I am guessing things are really bad now. Saw in the news the bed count and also that no more elective non-essential surgeries for a major health system.

How are you guys doing these days?

 

[emtb2rn, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

Bad, northeast, inundated with not only covid but all the usual er complaints, ICU is full, starting to hold in the er which also means an rrt which requires a transfer to the unit will come to us. Quite a few of the covid complaints are folks that had it weeks ago but still feel like crap. And then there’s the bam infusions which tie up rooms for hours. Could be worse, could be raining...

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

Thank you for the update. Hopefully no rain!

[Wuzzie]

They moved a refrigerator truck in as a temporary morgue today. It tanked our morale after being so happy about the vaccine. ☹️

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

I bet. I saw that on the news. Very sobering. 

[ladycody, BSN, RN]

Still unpleasant where I'm at.  The floors are understaffed and nurses are just worn out.

I had a day last week that felt good... remember those???....the type of day where you felt like you made a difference?...actually captained your boat instead of just slinging pails of water over the side???

Seriously.  Haven't had one of those in months.  It was a great day.  ?  I miss loving my job.

[SansNom]

Currently over 3/4 of all of our ICUs are covid units. "Clean" patients are taking up one half of our surgical ICU (with a temporary wall splitting the unit) and then overflowing into the PACU and taking up most of it, with only 4-5 beds still available for actual PACU patients. The PACU looks sad. Patients are just a few feet apart with only a curtain dividing them, most of them vented, and supplies all over the place. Code blues are a cramped mess where other patients can see the whole messy thing, and HIPAA is pretty much impossible to be mindful of.

2 and a half med/surg floors are now covid, with a possibility of expanding.

One of the biggest things people don't realize about covid isn't only how it affects actual covid patients, but also how it affects non-covid patients and our hospital and patient care system in general.

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

That sounds awful. Hopefully, by the end of this month things will slow down.

[Wuzzie]

Update.
The Good! The refrigerated semi has been removed. Our admitted COVID/PUIs are down to around 100.  24 on vents. 
The Bad! Only 6.4% of my state’s residents are fully vaccinated. Most of our counties are still above the CDC’s recommendation for percent positive. 
 

No end in sight for mask wearing and for some reason this week they are driving me nuts. I’m so over this.