Nurses risk own health on front lines of pandemic
Concerns about shortages of protective gear persist, keep students from getting clinical experience in field
Alejandra Salinas sprays herself with Lysol in the hospital parking lot after each shift.
When she arrives at her home in Santa Fe, the emergency room nurse changes out of her scrubs outside, takes a shower and then resists hugging her 8-year-old son, who is moving in with his grandmother in Las Cruces this weekend.
“My mom came up here to live with us, but I had to tell her, ‘You shouldn’t be here right now,’ ” Salinas said. “The main thing all us nurses are worried about is exposure and carrying this back to our families.”
As COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, spreads in New Mexico, Salinas and other nurses are risking their own health and that of their households
while testing and treating patients through shortages of protective equipment.
“What’s scary is we haven’t reached our peak yet,” Salinas said. “And when we reach our peak, we don’t know that we will have enough equipment to protect ourselves.”
Salinas, who started her first job in the field just days before the first cases of the coronavirus were confirmed in the state last month, declined to name the health care facility where she has been treating patients with symptoms of the illness.
Last month, the New Mexico Nurses Association conducted a survey of 1,352 nurses across the state about their work during the pandemic. Only 24 percent agreed their workplace is equipped to handle COVID-19 cases. Citing insufficient protective equipment, nurses expressed concerns about bringing the virus home with them.
“What is the plan when we run out of beds?” one anonymous survey respondent asked. “How much risk are we expected to take?”
New Mexico has a stockpile of nearly 44,000 N95 respirators to protect medical workers, nearly 234,000 less-protective surgical masks, over 70,000 gowns and 2.4 million medical exam gloves, the New Mexico Human Services Department reported Thursday.
But some officials and medical workers fear that won’t be enough.
Nurses across the state say they want fresh scrubs for each shift, weekly reports on distribution of personal protective equipment and published reports on the numbers, locations and results of nurses who have been tested for the new coronavirus.
Despite the risks of being exposed to the virus, Elaine Brightwater, a 73-year-old retired nurse with diabetes, said she has been volunteering at a testing facility four times per week. Most of her family can’t believe she does it, she said, but her daughter, who is also a nurse, understands.
“I’m 73. How many dang years do I have, and what am I going to do with them?” Brightwater said.
She has been lucky: So far, she has been able to wear an N95 mask, goggles and a face shield while conducting tests, she said.
“What I have been hearing from many, many New Mexico nurses is they are without critical PPE,” Brightwater said, referring to personal protective equipment. “And there is fear and anxiety about making those needs public and losing their jobs.”
Kathy Fresquez-Chavez, CEO of Bella Vida Health Care Clinic in Las Lunas, employs 12 nurse practitioners. They have turned to donations of homemade face masks and face shields to wear while visiting patients in person, she said.
“The two together should give us good protection,” Fresquez-Chavez said.
Before the pandemic, the clinic would see about 100 patients a day. Nowadays, Fresquez-Chavez said, it sees about 20 patients with chronic conditions each day and consults with another 15 via a telemedicine system.
The clinic also has been testing patients with symptoms of COVID-19.
She considers in-person visits with many chronically ill patients essential, FresquezChavez said.
“People don’t understand you can’t let a diabetic go for three or four months without seeing them. There is so much that can go wrong,” Fresquez-Chavez said. “People with chronic diseases and underlying medical conditions need to be followed and cared for. For them, telemedicine doesn’t work.”
As the state ramps up testing for the coronavirus and prepares for new cases of COVID-19 to flood into hospitals, nursing students waiting to graduate in May and pass a licensure exam in June are eager to help now.
But concerns about a possible shortage in protective equipment are preventing many of them from getting on-the-job training in hospitals.
Typically, nursing students at Santa Fe Community College and the University of New Mexico are required to perform 96 hours of clinical training in a hospital or hospital simulation work on campus. Campuses are closed, however, and local hospitals are not allowing nursing students to train at their facilities because they want to reserve protective gear for staff.
Students are left to complete clinical training online.
“It’s not the same as the clinical experience we could be getting right now,” said Rheanna Hastey, a UNM nursing student who plans to graduate in May. Before the pandemic arrived in the state, she was scheduled to do her clinical work at an emergency room in Española.
“It’s frustrating because I want to work,” she said.
Deborah Walker, executive director of the New Mexico Nurses Association, said upcoming graduates like Hastey won’t have trouble finding work in New Mexico or elsewhere due to a worldwide shortage of nurses even before the pandemic.
Salinas, a single mother whose son was born shortly after she graduated from Capital High School, worked her way through seven years of classes at Santa Fe Community College and UNM before graduating with a bachelor’s degree in December.
She hit the ground running with her first emergency room shift March 6, and now that she is finally a nurse, Salinas said she wants to be able to dress like one.
“I worked so hard to be here and get to this point and be a nurse,” she said. “… To not know if we will have the equipment we should have is devastating.
“But we’re still showing up to work. We’re still there every day. We don’t know if we’re going to have masks or gowns tomorrow, but we’re still going to show up.”