I’m a SE Michigan nurse

I’m going to share my experiences with what’s going on in SE michigan. Please forgive grammar dt me typing this on my phone.

Hospital clinics have, essentially, been shut down. Family members can’t see their loved ones or advacate/discuss options of care being given to their loved ones. From my experiences working covid icu every patient was late 50s+ and had many comorbities (diabetes, chorionic kidney disease, immune compromised). I’ve saw a couple patients removed from ventilators and they were the lucky ones.

being ventilated is pretty much a death sentence. As mentioned above, elderly sick patients don’t have family to advocate for them and most of them are elderly with many ailments and go along with what the medical care team tells them.

Some of these patients didn’t need to be ventilated and it was pushed on them bc that’s the norm and what everyone is being told to do. Some of these patients whose spo2 weren’t elevating The doctors were pretty much writing them off. When I asked the docs why aren’t they using hydroxychloroquine, azithromiacin and zinc, they laughed it off and said they’re not doing that.

think what you want about President Trump, but why not at least try it? Instead it’s ventilate the patient if sats are trending down, sedate with propifol, push antibiotic IV and hope for the best. Every option was not used to try and save people. Hell, vitamin C wasn’t even used.

i work at the Ann Arbor VA. We started taking non-vets to lighten the load of Detroit hospitals. Now this is just my personal experience with this so take it for what it’s worth. We were given the sickest patients that needed to be ventilated and were essentially the most expensive for hospitals to maintain. The VA was abused by these hospitals and I don’t blame them since they can’t make money dt being forced to shut all clinics down in their hospitals.

Theres a hospital around Trenton, MI we were taking report from accepting one of their humanitarian cases. The nurse at that hospital told us that on a Wednesday the nurses were pushing for hazard pay, that Friday the hospital executive told them to transfer all covid patients out bc they’re going clean, meaning they won’t have covid patients anymore. If this was such a horrible virus with hospitals being overrun, how can a hospital get away with that?

My personal opinion is it was ok to ask people to distance themselves for 2-3 weeks, but when the governor of Michigan doesn’t allow us to buy seeds to plant a garden, buy paint, American flags, force stores to shut down areas she deems nonessential or not allow landscapers or other businesses to operate that don’t come in contact with anyone, go golfing, use a motorized boat, but it’s ok to go to the store and potentially be exposed to the virus, I find it an abuse of power. 

We went from quarantining sick people to quarantining healthy people. The curve in Michigan is on the down slope and clinics at the VA will be opening up again next week. It’s to a point that everyone knows the risks and se/symptoms and if a person wants to quarantine themselves by all means. If someone wants to risk themselves that’s their choice, but why light the constitution and civil liberties on fire for something that’s turning out to be killing people with comorbities. Those people can stay at home and we can take the proper precautions if we choose to see them or assist them with groceries, meals, etc…

This virus attacks hgb causing iron deficiency. The medications for sedation wreak havoc on kidneys. People with diabetes or ckd are of course going to expire if they get ventilated. I just don’t understand why we couldn’t try anything or everything at that point especially when other countries are sharing their experiences of what’s working. The whole situation if f**ked up and it’s not the President’s fault. There are docs in high places creating a culture of not trying everything. Most people die bc they’re already f**ked up medically but it’s being blamed on covid.