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elkaholic

Time for America to take ACTION

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From a nurse on the front line::

CDC recommending hospital staff use bandanas when masks run out. Hospitals are asking the public to sew masks.

Here is a physician responding: Please don't tell me that in the richest country in the world in the 21st century, I'm supposed to work in a fictionalized Soviet-era disaster zone and fashion my own face mask out of cloth because other Americans hoard supplies for personal use and so-called leaders sit around in meetings hearing themselves talk. I ran to a bedside the other day to intubate a crashing, likely COVID, patient. Two respiratory therapists and two nurses were already at the bedside. That's 5 N95s masks, 5 gowns, 5 face shields and 10 gloves for one patient at one time. I saw probably 15-20 patients that shift, if we are going to start rationing supplies, what percentage should I wear precautions for? Make no mistake, the CDC is loosening these guidelines because our country is not prepared. Loosening guidelines increases healthcare workers' risk but the decision is done to allow us to keep working, not to keep us safe. It is done for the public benefit - so I can continue to work no matter the personal cost to me or my family (and my healthcare family).

Sending healthcare workers to the front line asking them to cover their face with a bandana is akin to sending a soldier to the front line in a t-shirt and flip flops. I don't want talk. I don't want assurances. I want action. I want boxes of N95s piling up, donated from the people who hoarded them. I want non-clinical administrators in the hospital lining up in the ER asking if they can stock shelves to make sure that when I need to rush into a room, the drawer of PPE equipment I open isn't empty. I want them showing up in the ER asking "how can I help" instead of offering shallow "plans" conceived by someone who has spent far too long in an ivory tower and not long enough in the trenches. Maybe they should actually step foot in the trenches. I want billion-dollar companies like 3M halting all production of any product that isn't PPE to focus on PPE manufacturing. I want a company like Amazon, with its logistics mastery (it can drop a package to your door less than 24 hours after ordering it), halting its 2-day delivery of 12 reams of toilet paper to whoever is willing to pay the most in order to help get the available PPE supply distributed fast and efficiently in a manner that gets the necessary materials to my brothers and sisters in arms who need them. I want Proctor and Gamble, and the makers of other soaps and detergents, stepping up too. We need detergent to clean scrubs, hospital linens and gowns. We need disinfecting wipes to clean desk and computer surfaces. What about plastics manufacturers? Plastic gowns aren't some high-tech device, they are long shirts/smocks...made out of plastic. Get on it. Face shields are just clear plastic. Nitrile gloves? Yeah, they are pretty much just gloves...made from something that isn't apparently Latex. Let's go. Money talks in this country. Executive millionaires, why don't you spend a few bucks to buy back some of these masks from the hoarders, and drop them off at the nearest hospital. I love biotechnology and research but we need to divert viral culture media for COVID testing and research. We need biotechnology manufacturing ready and able to ramp up if and when treatments or vaccines are developed. Our Botox supply isn't critical, but our antibiotic supply is. We need to be able to make more plastic ET tubes, not more silicon breast implants. Let's see all that. Then we can all talk about how we played our part in this fight. Netflix and chill is not enough while my family, friends and colleagues are out there fighting. Our country won two world wars because the entire country mobilized. We out-produced and we out-manufactured while our soldiers out-fought the enemy. We need to do that again because make no mistake, we are at war, healthcare workers are your soldiers, and the war has just begun.

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I went walmart yesterday and almost everyone in the store was wearing masks... I'm wondering where are they getting these masks? 

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There is going to be a shortage for quite a while. quite a while. Companies are ramping up production, locally last week Honeywell said they were looking to hire 500 people.

There will continue to be a short supply now that the medical field is begging for more masks but what is the general populace to do. I looked online and orders are showing a Mid May ship date.

I listened to a rebroadcast of a conference call of Cardiologists and Nurses from multiple locations recently and at one facility they assign a primary care nurse and a secondary care nurse for a patient and the secondary one stays outside the room to coordinate and another person comes in to do any respritory needs. It sounded like they had a protocol to limit the possible exposure of their staff.

I'm sure most places are trying to figure out what works for them. It has to be tough to decide when a patient has reached the point where they run out of effective treatment and can only make them comfortable and hope for the best then focus their attention to other patients.

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Most hospitals are private. He is complaining about how the almighty government was ill prepared for this... sounds like his hospital was also ill prepared. Shouldn’t hospitals have large stockpiles?  

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45 minutes ago, trphyhntr said:

i keep hearing the hospitals are empty, is it true or conspiracy 

More or less...

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3 hours ago, elkaholic said:

From a nurse on the front line::

CDC recommending hospital staff use bandanas when masks run out. Hospitals are asking the public to sew masks.

Here is a physician responding: Please don't tell me that in the richest country in the world in the 21st century, I'm supposed to work in a fictionalized Soviet-era disaster zone and fashion my own face mask out of cloth because other Americans hoard supplies for personal use and so-called leaders sit around in meetings hearing themselves talk. I ran to a bedside the other day to intubate a crashing, likely COVID, patient. Two respiratory therapists and two nurses were already at the bedside. That's 5 N95s masks, 5 gowns, 5 face shields and 10 gloves for one patient at one time. I saw probably 15-20 patients that shift, if we are going to start rationing supplies, what percentage should I wear precautions for? Make no mistake, the CDC is loosening these guidelines because our country is not prepared. Loosening guidelines increases healthcare workers' risk but the decision is done to allow us to keep working, not to keep us safe. It is done for the public benefit - so I can continue to work no matter the personal cost to me or my family (and my healthcare family).

Sending healthcare workers to the front line asking them to cover their face with a bandana is akin to sending a soldier to the front line in a t-shirt and flip flops. I don't want talk. I don't want assurances. I want action. I want boxes of N95s piling up, donated from the people who hoarded them. I want non-clinical administrators in the hospital lining up in the ER asking if they can stock shelves to make sure that when I need to rush into a room, the drawer of PPE equipment I open isn't empty. I want them showing up in the ER asking "how can I help" instead of offering shallow "plans" conceived by someone who has spent far too long in an ivory tower and not long enough in the trenches. Maybe they should actually step foot in the trenches. I want billion-dollar companies like 3M halting all production of any product that isn't PPE to focus on PPE manufacturing. I want a company like Amazon, with its logistics mastery (it can drop a package to your door less than 24 hours after ordering it), halting its 2-day delivery of 12 reams of toilet paper to whoever is willing to pay the most in order to help get the available PPE supply distributed fast and efficiently in a manner that gets the necessary materials to my brothers and sisters in arms who need them. I want Proctor and Gamble, and the makers of other soaps and detergents, stepping up too. We need detergent to clean scrubs, hospital linens and gowns. We need disinfecting wipes to clean desk and computer surfaces. What about plastics manufacturers? Plastic gowns aren't some high-tech device, they are long shirts/smocks...made out of plastic. Get on it. Face shields are just clear plastic. Nitrile gloves? Yeah, they are pretty much just gloves...made from something that isn't apparently Latex. Let's go. Money talks in this country. Executive millionaires, why don't you spend a few bucks to buy back some of these masks from the hoarders, and drop them off at the nearest hospital. I love biotechnology and research but we need to divert viral culture media for COVID testing and research. We need biotechnology manufacturing ready and able to ramp up if and when treatments or vaccines are developed. Our Botox supply isn't critical, but our antibiotic supply is. We need to be able to make more plastic ET tubes, not more silicon breast implants. Let's see all that. Then we can all talk about how we played our part in this fight. Netflix and chill is not enough while my family, friends and colleagues are out there fighting. Our country won two world wars because the entire country mobilized. We out-produced and we out-manufactured while our soldiers out-fought the enemy. We need to do that again because make no mistake, we are at war, healthcare workers are your soldiers, and the war has just begun.

Well said. My wife and daughter are RN's at VA in Tucson and i have had this exact conversations with the both of them for the exact same things you have stated. Get them the supplies you and them all need. 

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If they weren’t so wasteful and unwilling to take supplies (new, sealed in factory packages) before all of this happened then maybe hospitals would have enough. I know I’m not the only one that’s tried to return unused medical supplies before this year, only to be told to keep them or throw them out.

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The irony of all the stuff we are running out of is most of it is produced in China who is also the country that caused this.  Now they have the upper hand.  Maybe we will learn a lesson that getting goods for cheaper has a price has a big toll.  Maybe our country will get smarter and relax some of our stupid restrictions which would allow the US to get back in the production business 

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2 hours ago, trphyhntr said:

i keep hearing the hospitals are empty, is it true or conspiracy 

My partner at works wife has had her last 2-3 shifts canceled. She's an R.N. with a bunch of other extra credentials.  Works at Saint Joe's. Kinda weird considering all the media hype saying hospitals are being overran. Go figure 

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I agree we should or could have been more prepared, but I highly doubt any level of previously thought preparedness would have been enough.  Seriously, who would have thought every hospital would need to have thousands of spare N95 masks?  It simply wouldn't and probably still isn't practical.  These types of emergencies cannot be prepared for on the large scale.  We do the best we can and that's all we really can do.  With today's media and the social outrage culture it was obvious mass hysteria was going to overcome the supply chain.  I'm not sure what we will ultimately learn from this disaster, but I know the precedence of closing the county has been set.  That's the scariest part of this whole thing for me.  I hope we don't decide to close the county during every serious flu outbreak!!

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5 hours ago, elkaholic said:

From a nurse on the front line::

CDC recommending hospital staff use bandanas when masks run out. Hospitals are asking the public to sew masks.

Here is a physician responding: Please don't tell me that in the richest country in the world in the 21st century, I'm supposed to work in a fictionalized Soviet-era disaster zone and fashion my own face mask out of cloth because other Americans hoard supplies for personal use and so-called leaders sit around in meetings hearing themselves talk. I ran to a bedside the other day to intubate a crashing, likely COVID, patient. Two respiratory therapists and two nurses were already at the bedside. That's 5 N95s masks, 5 gowns, 5 face shields and 10 gloves for one patient at one time. I saw probably 15-20 patients that shift, if we are going to start rationing supplies, what percentage should I wear precautions for? Make no mistake, the CDC is loosening these guidelines because our country is not prepared. Loosening guidelines increases healthcare workers' risk but the decision is done to allow us to keep working, not to keep us safe. It is done for the public benefit - so I can continue to work no matter the personal cost to me or my family (and my healthcare family).

Sending healthcare workers to the front line asking them to cover their face with a bandana is akin to sending a soldier to the front line in a t-shirt and flip flops. I don't want talk. I don't want assurances. I want action. I want boxes of N95s piling up, donated from the people who hoarded them. I want non-clinical administrators in the hospital lining up in the ER asking if they can stock shelves to make sure that when I need to rush into a room, the drawer of PPE equipment I open isn't empty. I want them showing up in the ER asking "how can I help" instead of offering shallow "plans" conceived by someone who has spent far too long in an ivory tower and not long enough in the trenches. Maybe they should actually step foot in the trenches. I want billion-dollar companies like 3M halting all production of any product that isn't PPE to focus on PPE manufacturing. I want a company like Amazon, with its logistics mastery (it can drop a package to your door less than 24 hours after ordering it), halting its 2-day delivery of 12 reams of toilet paper to whoever is willing to pay the most in order to help get the available PPE supply distributed fast and efficiently in a manner that gets the necessary materials to my brothers and sisters in arms who need them. I want Proctor and Gamble, and the makers of other soaps and detergents, stepping up too. We need detergent to clean scrubs, hospital linens and gowns. We need disinfecting wipes to clean desk and computer surfaces. What about plastics manufacturers? Plastic gowns aren't some high-tech device, they are long shirts/smocks...made out of plastic. Get on it. Face shields are just clear plastic. Nitrile gloves? Yeah, they are pretty much just gloves...made from something that isn't apparently Latex. Let's go. Money talks in this country. Executive millionaires, why don't you spend a few bucks to buy back some of these masks from the hoarders, and drop them off at the nearest hospital. I love biotechnology and research but we need to divert viral culture media for COVID testing and research. We need biotechnology manufacturing ready and able to ramp up if and when treatments or vaccines are developed. Our Botox supply isn't critical, but our antibiotic supply is. We need to be able to make more plastic ET tubes, not more silicon breast implants. Let's see all that. Then we can all talk about how we played our part in this fight. Netflix and chill is not enough while my family, friends and colleagues are out there fighting. Our country won two world wars because the entire country mobilized. We out-produced and we out-manufactured while our soldiers out-fought the enemy. We need to do that again because make no mistake, we are at war, healthcare workers are your soldiers, and the war has just begun.

its bogus make believe the world is coming to an end anonymous fictitious emails, postings what ever the heck you want to call them is freaking people out.

I am guessing this email was written by a 19 -26 year old still living in mommas basement who is a bearnie sanders supporter.

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