In a North Dakota hospital, nurses are being forced to test patients for the deadly coronavirus, using only a surgical mask. Across the state, dozens of nurses are working multiple night shifts in a row, afraid to speak up as North Dakota grapples with a rapid rise in the coronavirus that has left hospitals facing serious shortages of beds.
On Monday, state officials announced a First aid that seems the opposite To combat the tidal wave of cases that has overwhelmed the often rural hospital system: Covid-19 nurses and healthcare workers can come to work.
Now, nurses are furious with hell.
“Nurses have a lot of confidence in our society, and if we say we can go back to work after a positive test – how do we expect the public to take this epidemic seriously?” Tessa Johnson, president of the North Dakota Nurses Association, told The Daily Beast.
“I’ve heard it from a lot of people that they are on the verge of collapse. I think we’re going to lose the nurses from this. It affected everyone in a different way.”
But while many North Dakota nurses told The Daily Beast that they are “terrified” by the virus, they insist that they will continue to attend their increasingly dangerous jobs because “that’s what nurses do.”
“The nurses don’t feel safe.” Johnson, who is also the executive director of a high-level long-term care facility, said, “They don’t feel they have adequate PPE and everyone cares about the short staffing and they don’t feel supported by the country’s leadership.” But they will continue to go to work. And they’re putting themselves in danger because that’s exactly what nurses do – even if they’re hanging by a thread. ”
Starting Monday, North Dakota medical professionals with asymptomatic COVID-19 cases can continue to work in COVID-19 units in hospitals and nursing homes. It is one of many steps hospitals and officials have taken as part of their “surprise plans” to curb the virus that has moved the entire state into the “high risk” category.
“This only applies to healthcare workers with COVID who are asymptomatic and are only permitted to work in COVID units around patients already infected with the virus,” North Dakota Gov. Doug Borghum said on Monday.
Borgham insisted that the move is in line with CDC guidelines that allow medical personnel without symptoms to work while doing it. Severe shortage of staff.
These changes come even with the election of leaders in North Dakota – which, according to one survey, they have The lowest percentage of residents use face coverings in the countryRepeatedly rejects creating a mask state or any other robust plan to mitigate COVID-19.
A nurse in North Dakota, who asked not to be identified for fear of professional retaliation, said the state’s unprecedented step to allow people living with the virus to treat patients was “myopic at best – and completely harmful at worst.”
The nurse said: “We need state officials to take decisive and hard-line decisions to combat this virus, otherwise our hospital system will collapse completely,” adding that she has many colleagues and friends who have been infected with the virus. “Allowing health-care workers with the disease to treat patients with the same disease will not help anything. It just makes the problem worse.”
Another nurse, who works in Bismarck, told The Daily Beast that she did not know how willing she was to put herself and her family at risk in a situation that she did not “seem to support anymore”.
Johnson indicated that nurses infected with the Coronavirus will not be isolated from virus patients and can spread the deadly virus to their colleagues in “bathrooms, dining rooms, break rooms and elevators.”
She said it was not “unrealistic” to contain the “highly contagious” virus in certain hospital wards, but that the new measure “would make matters worse” because it would increase the stress of the nurses and prevent them from resting in hospital areas “where they should feel safe.”
As the epicenter of the Coronavirus outbreak in the Midwest, there is currently the worst per capita death rate in the country. While the Coronavirus is rising at an uncontrollable rate, … Dozens of countries across the countryAccording to the North Dakota daily average of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths puts the state first ProPublica.
North Dakota Department of Health on Thursday mentioned 1801 new cases in the state, bringing the total to 59,173, with a positive rate of about 18.7 percent. Last week, it was the state 171 cases of coronavirus infection per 100,000 People, the highest per capita in the country, according to the CDC.
Officials also revealed that 11 people had died from the virus on Thursday, bringing the state’s death toll to 697. Among the dead was David Andal, the Republican legislative candidate for North Dakota, who died in October –But he ended up winning his seat.
Health experts are concerned about the trajectory of 762,062 Americans, especially since neighboring countries are experiencing similar surges.
Dr. Amish Adalja, a senior researcher at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security who specializes in infectious diseases, believes that the course of the virus in North Dakota is officially putting it in a “crisis”.
“This case doesn’t have a lot of medical resources, which means it has a low threshold that can overwhelm it if things go wrong,” Adalja told the Daily Beast, adding that the state’s troop surge “is a lesson for what happens when you don’t plan for cases.” “.
On Wednesday, the Ministry of Health revealed that some residents have tested positive for COVID-19 multiple times, and officials said they have launched an investigation to determine whether these cases are, in fact, infections.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Health said: “Our cases are people who have tested positive twice, and have symptoms a second time, and most of them got more than 90 days between positive results.” forum.
However, Adalja insists that North Dakota’s decision to allow healthcare workers to continue working with “acute infections” is more a “sign of the times” than a dangerous decision that could lead to reinfection.
“Reinfection is a very rare thing. These medical workers are acute cases working with patients who are already infected. However, things will get worse in North Dakota before they get better,” Adalja said.
Burgum has moved every county in the state to a “high risk” level, indicated in orange. The level, one step below the lockdown measures never used in the state, limits all bars and event venues to 25 percent capacity. On Monday, Burgum identified several other initiatives to stop the crisis, including hiring EMTs and paramedics to run test sites.
“Our hospitals are under tremendous pressure now,” added Borghum. “We can see the future in two or three weeks, and we know we have severe limitations.”
Sanford Health, one of the state’s largest healthcare systems, also announced on Thursday that it will send hospital patients to a nearby nursing home in Fargo to recover in an effort to free up hospital space. to me forum, The nursing home will open a ward that will provide 24 additional beds for a hospital system that is already operating at “very high capacity”.
The North Dakota Nurses Association has criticized state leadership for allowing medical workers infected with the Coronavirus to continue to work. In a Wednesday night statement, they said it should be the choice of health care workers to stay on the job while the coronavirus is positive – rather than employers.
“If the nurse believes she is not well enough to provide safe care to patients and chooses not to work under these circumstances, then employers should not retaliate against the nurse for making this decision,” the statement read, adding that the state should press the COVID-19 guidelines. For relief, such as enforcing mask wearing and social distancing.
Johnson said nurses are already putting themselves on line for their patients every day.
“They may be positive health care workers who have not been tested,” Johnson said. “Everyone is already putting themselves at risk of this virus. We are preparing for a very dark week to eight weeks unless drastic change occurs.”
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