An Irish nurse working in the US has told how the bodies of Covid-19 victims had to be piled into a lorry because the morgue was full.
Orla Nic Dhonncha, from Leitir Mealláin, Co Galway, has described her harrowing experience on the front-line in a hospital in Norwood, Massachusetts.
She said: “Things were so bad a fortnight ago, and so many patients were dying, that we ran out of bags... body bags.
"As if that’s not bad enough, then there was no room in the morgue, it was full.
"So they brought in a truck, parked outside the hospital, for these poor people’s bodies. A big lorry."
She was speaking during an interview on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta's Adhmhaidin on Tuesday.
Orla said the hospital is in a "terrible situation" and is completely overrun due to the coronavirus outbreak in the States.
She said there isn't enough equipment for staff to treat the disease in the hospital and that she had to use one protective mask for seven weeks.
Orla said: "Last week was okay, but the week before that we had to send some patients into Boston, we didn’t have enough beds.
"We were running out of a good bit of stuff in the ICU – we didn’t have pumps, intubators for patients.
“We’re not well-stocked at all. Last weekend, I had to wear the same apron into each COVID patient over my 12 hour shift.
"The N95 masks, I got my second one last week. The first one I had, I had used it for seven weeks.
"I had to go to the person who’s in charge of the hospital and explain why I needed a new one, why it was so important.
"They don’t want to give them out because they don’t have enough. It’s terrible."
The tense environment has got to Orla and other staff, who have all been experiencing eerie night terrors.
She added: “We’re all going through the same thing. When I started, I couldn’t sleep a wink, I’d be having these strange dreams.
"I’d wake in the middle of the night, thinking of the patients dying and me looking through the door at them dying without anyone with them. I’d wake up.
"I thought it was just me, but then I started talking to the other nurses, and they all said they were hardly sleeping at all.
"That’s the way it is, your heart is just racing, racing, racing all the time.”
