Doctors, nurses brace for a surge in cases
LOS ANGELES — As hospitals prepare for a possibly overwhelming number of COVID-19 patients in the coming weeks, doctors and nurses in all departments are being told they may have to start working in emergency rooms and intensive care units, a directive that has sent shock waves through the medical community.
Health workers say they are concerned about their ability to perform duties they haven’t done in decades, or perhaps ever, as well as for their own health and safety.
“Anxiety is an understatement. I’d be terrified,” said a surgical nurse at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. There, a looming staff shortage caused by COVID-19 could mean a labor pool to redistribute nurses to the intensive care unit, she said.
“No reasonable person would ever expect me to do that under normal circumstances,” said the nurse, who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the media.
But the expected surge of COVID-19 cases has forced hospital leaders to consider calling in reinforcements from all departments, ration protective gear and advise their staffs to not talk to journalists about the desperate preparations underway.
Doctors, nurses and other hospital workers say their anxiety levels are rising as they hear not just about medical workers in Italy and China falling sick, but now an increasing number of U.S. health workers as well.
This week, two emergency room physicians, one in Washington state and one in New Jersey, were infected with the coronavirus and admitted to hospitals in critical condition. Several health workers in Seattle, now an epicenter for the virus, have fallen ill with the disease as well. A UC San Francisco emergency medicine doctor reported this week that he had COVID-19 and that he may have infected others while at a recent medical conference.
“We’re going to start dropping like flies,” said a nurse in an urgent care clinic in Los Angeles County, who has seen several patients with COVID-10 symptoms. “I’m a single mom; I’m supporting my son through college. I don’t have a choice — I’m going to work.”
As cases begin to mount within the United States, American health workers say they are haunted by stories from other countries where COVID-19 cases have already exploded.
In uneasy conversations, many providers bring up Dr. Li Wenliang, the 34-year-old Chinese physician who rang the alarm bells about the new virus and then succumbed to it.
“What I’m hearing about colleagues — physicians who are younger than me who are dying of this — it’s scary,” said Dr. Nick Mark, a critical care physician in Seattle who has been treating COVID-19 patients.
Mark said he and his wife, who also is a doctor, have discussed worst-case scenarios, he said.
“What happens if I end up on a ventilator? What are we going to do?” he said. “We have friends who are doctors — we’ve basically said, ‘If you guys get sick, we’ll take care of the kids, and you do the same for us.’ ”
Mark posted to Twitter a guide to managing severely ill COVID-19 patients that has been widely circulated among physicians. He created it for doctors in other specialties who he anticipates will eventually be asked to help, as has happened in other countries.
He noted that Li, who worked on the front lines in Wuhan, China, was an ophthalmologist. In Seattle, hospital staff members already are straining under the number of patients they have now, he said.
“That makes me nervous because this is a marathon, not a sprint,” he said. “The peak of it is likely weeks away, if not months away.”