Heartache of Covid-19 cases
Health-care workers share experiences on social media
AS CAPE Town heads into what is likely the peak of infections, healthcare workers are taking to social media to share with the public what it’s really like inside the packed Covid-19 hospital wards.
Verna Collins and Judith Parenzee, two nurses in Groote’s Schuur’s Covid-19 ICU, described the overwhelming feeling of being packed with admissions.
“We used to have six beds in here; now we’re sitting with 18 beds in the unit that I’m currently working in. We’ve only had one patient that’s actually left. The turnover is so bad. We’ve been admitting constantly, it just goes on and on,” they wrote online.
Dr Laylah Fayker, who works in emergency medicine at a public hospital in Cape Town, described how a relatively young and previously healthy Covid-19 patient lost his life without access to an ICU bed.
“No ICU beds, doc. We had a patient, 42-year-old with Covid. No commodities. He came in severely short of breath. We threw everything we could at him but couldn’t tube him because we had no beds. He died,” she wrote.
“One of the senior medical officers and I really took this one to heart because we were pushing for a bed for him while the sisters were proning him (positioning him on his stomach to help breathing).
“She did the rest of the call and when she saw me in the morning, she took my hand and she said: ‘There wasn’t a bed.’ We cried.”
Dr Danielle Moulton, who works at Groote Schuur Hospital, described on Facebook what it’s like to work in a Covid-19 ward during Cape Town’s peak infections.
“We are faced with so many difficult decisions every day. Who deserves double oxygen therapy and who doesn’t? May we keep this patient here to be with her dying husband despite her being well? What do we do if this treatment doesn’t work for this patient since they’ve been rejected from ICU?” she wrote.
“All the while, we try to act brave and strong, knowing very well that we often don’t have the answers. We are exhausted, scared for our own health and that of our loved ones, and wishing that times were different. We get home and get ready to do it all over again the next day.”
It’s not only Covid-positive patients who are facing the worst odds.
Dr Michelle Dandara described her heartbreak at being unable to help a young patient because she couldn’t be admitted to ICU until her test results proved her Covid-19 status.
“What I hate the most about this pandemic is withholding life-saving surgery because Covid needs to be excluded first,” she wrote. “The sweetest little angel needed surgery for a blocked VP shunt and ICU would only take her if she had a negative swab. She died, and 30 minutes later her result came back as negative. I’ve been in tears all day.”
General surgery registrar Dr Soliegah Gabriels-carletti had a similar experience at a hospital in Cape Town.
“Yesterday, I had to call a 55-yearold man’s wife and tell her that she should come and say goodbye to him before we admitted him to the ward; he wasn’t going to go home,” she wrote. “He didn’t get to say goodbye to his kids. Due to our overburdened ICUS currently, he didn’t make it to one. He did not have Covid-19, but he is still a victim of the disease.”
Ear, nose and throat surgeon Dr Fanele Mdletshe, who works in Gauteng, said the pandemic hamstrung medical professionals from treating conditions other than Covid-19.