In short, we’re not too fussed, yet.
Covid-19 has been around for about three months and we are yet to see the full effects of it on our health system. About a month ago it was just another thing I’d scroll past on whatever news outlet I was on to read my horoscope or when Gerrard would be getting sacked. Now that it seems to be creeping closer I’m paying a bit more attention it.
I thought at first it was just like the flu. Now that I’ve read more about it I know it is like the flu.
I work in an intensive care unit in Sydney so it is inevitable I will come face to face with the virus at some point. The emails from New South Wales Health regarding Covid-19 have gradually become more frequent. From status updates to equipment shortages (we’re running low on masks) to conditions around our annual leave, we have received them all.
Within the unit in the last 10 days management have taken the steps to ensure the negative pressures rooms are staying open for when we welcome the disease into our hospital.
These rooms within a hospital are designed to prevent the spread of airborne diseases by generating negative pressure inside the room. As air will naturally move from a higher to a lower pressure area it means that air can enter the room, but not escape it.
This means that if you could get the ceiling fan to spin backwards, you could potentially generate a negative pressure room at your home. Usually we try to keep these hospital rooms free but when we’re busy the beds have to be used.
Are we concerned about what’s going on? The honest answer is not really. Or at least not yet. Like a cliched rugby league player speaking post match we nurses approach our work “one day at a time”. Sure, we’ve done our reading on it, but unless we are faced with it we’re not too concerned.
Most of the talk about Covid-19 around the tea room is how ridiculous the general public are about toilet paper. One nurse told me overnight that this is the first time she noticed how collectively stupid people are. But hysteria will do that to humans.
Of most concern to nurses is the holidays we have planned in the coming months. Any requests for annual leave for nurses’ medical staff from now until further notice have to almost be approved by Greg Hunt himself.
If we have annual leave and are travelling to an affected area or an area that is frowned upon by Smarttraveller, then we will not be granted special leave once we return home. So if we come back with the virus and if we have exhausted our annual leave and sick leave, then the 14-day quarantine period comes out of our pocket. It’ll be a brave dice to roll, considering how infectious this disease is.
Another issue, which will only become more frequent, is that when booking an interpreter for a patient we must first ask if they or their family have been exposed to the virus.
Outside of work I haven’t noticed too much mania around the virus. When it is brought up around those who haven’t read enough about it to know it’s like the flu, they ask me what I would do if I caught it. Why, that’s simple, my friend, precisely what I am told to do. Isolate myself for 14 days. Rest. Chicken soup and Sprite. Not buying so much toilet paper that it becomes a burden for those less fortunate than myself to acquire. Frankly, the thought of it sounds brilliant.
I have a good friend who works at Westmead. It was interesting chatting to her about how the situation is being managed there. Westmead is where people with Covid-19 are sent if they need to be taken to hospital. She told me that two wards are currently used for the hospitalised cases, with only a couple of beds allocated to their ICU. There was a bit of a frenzy at one point with cleaners refusing to clean the rooms where infected patients had stayed, but this resolved rather quickly.
We as the frontline healthcare professionals are not too bothered just yet but I can only speak from where I am working. We just haven’t been exposed to it yet. The most worrying thing for me, aside from having to drive to Shoalhaven to get toilet paper, is that our regular flu season is still three months away.
• The author is a nurse in an intensive care unit
