Nurses during coronavirus pandemic face an uphill battle. They always have
Taken from NorthJersey.com
By Jim Beckerman
April 9, 2020
It’s been said and said, but still not said enough: God bless the nurses.
God bless the doctors, technicians, orderlies and ambulance drivers, too. But nurses above all.
They’re the front line of the front line — the first division on the beaches. The ones facing the worst enemy fire, at closest range.
It’s also been said that, when this is all over, there should be a ticker tape parade down Broadway for all the nurses, doctors and medical personnel who risked their lives for all of us. Amen.
But especially: God bless the nurses.
“The patients we’re seeing, the ones on ventilators, are probably the sickest people we’ve ever seen,” said Tim Thoman, a registered nurse and paramedic who works in hospitals in New York and New Jersey.
“People don’t realize how sick their family members actually are,” Thoman said. “They haven’t seen it, because the hospitals have stopped visitations. It’s scary how deadly this is. And people don’t believe it.”
One way we can thank nurses — and help ourselves, while we’re at it — is to listen to them. Because nurses know what’s going on.
When nurses tell you they don’t have enough PPE — personal protective equipment — believe it. When they report that they have been harassed by hospitals for airing their concerns, believe it. When they tell you to get serious about distancing and sanitizing, believe it.
A politician, at best, is telling you what he heard from a health commissioner, who heard it from a doctor, who heard it from a nurse.
At worst — no names, please — he’s telling you things that flagrantly contradict what a nurse sees every time she or he straps on a face mask. Assuming they’re lucky enough to have one.
“When we’re crying out, calling for help, calling for PPE, calling for additional resources, we really want to be heard,” said Tatyana Mah, a New Jersey resident who would rather not say which hospital she’s a nurse at (see above, “airing concerns”).