Doctors, Nurses, and First Responders: "Thank you for your service."

The Quarantine Zone
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I don’t usually start threads but I felt compelled to put this out there. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and subsequent conflicts there began a social meme of thanking first responders and service people “for their service” to the country. To a significant extent this become a kind of pro forma salutation, and soon enough most went back to normal life with only the occasional nod to the damage being wrought by continuous warfare or how awful certain politicians are for sticking a bunch of riders into the Zadroga Act renewal, preventing 9/11 first responders with health problems from getting health care for their chronic illnesses resulting from their exposures.

We are now at war, not with a foreign power or hunting a terrorist mastermind, but with biology itself. The people on the front lines of that war are doctors, nurses, EMTs, paramedics, epidemiologists, and medical researchers setting aside their own personal needs and many putting themselves at great personal risk to slow the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and treat the outbreaks of COVID-19 disease. Doctors and nurses in emergency rooms and ICU wards are working long hours of seemingly endless shifts with inadequate protection, supplies, or support, and despite their best efforts often fail to save patient after patient. Many of these medical workers are becoming ill themselves, and many are fearful of infecting their families, and yet they are holding the line against an invisible, implacable enemy that will not stop until it is extinguished.

The medical community, more than anyone else, is going to be devastated once they have time to take a collective breath. Many will be traumatized by the gruesome death they have seen and the sheer numbers of patients they failed to save. The deaths of coworkers and friends will last long in their minds. Some may have chronic physiological damage from infections, and I suspect most are going to have some degree of psychological harm on the same scale as battlefield PTSD. They are holding together now through camaraderie and absolute dedication to the mission of saving everyone that they can, but there are going to be personal emotional ramifications for years to come.

So, as much as you expressed your “thank you for your service” to veterans and first responders, remember to thank these doctors, nurses, and others, now and forever, for the risks they are taking and the sacrifices they are making; not just with words but with support and care, including professional mental health services, assurance of access to treatment for illnesses and injuries from the epidemic, and other losses they may experience in their sacrifice. “Never forget” that when the pandemic that epidemiologists have been warning about for decades finally came and it became apparent that there wasn’t nearly enough preparation or protective equipment, these people stepped up anyway and did their jobs. And when it comes time to examine the who needs to be recompensed and supported after the epidemic subsides, these people need to be at the front of the line.

There is also something to be said about all of the people who failed to heed warnings, who took away or played politics with needed resources, and who minimized the concerns and guidance of public health officials, but that is a topic for a different thread. This is about making sure that the people who took the call and stepped to duty are remembered and recognized, and that they are taken care of after the cameras turn elsewhere.

Stranger

2

Seconded, and I extend it to the people who staff grocery stores, as well.

3

I couldn’t agree more. Thanks to all who tough it out and suck it up, often thanklessly, through this nightmare.

4

Yeah, the people manning cash registers, stocking shelves, transporting goods, et cetera are all doing essential work to keep everybody else fed and comforted, and the lack of PPE for these people (who are also being exposed on a daily basis) is a travesty. But the medical professionals and first responders are at the front lines, watching people die around them with what I can only imagine is little sense of control or hope, and being told to reuse or do without PPE that is supposed to protect them. There is going to be long-lasting emotional trauma coming out of this, and not one that can be dismissed as affecting “only war veterans” or some other marginalized category. We need to collectively ensure that these people are remembered and taken care of because right now they are taking care of us.

Stranger

5

Yes, thank you to all of you who are helping us fight this. Especially the medical staff who are getting coughed on by the ill, but also all the people who are keeping needed supplies moving.

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Just an FYI: 2020 is the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife.

7

Washington Post:” ‘You’re basically right next to the nuclear reactor.’: Cory Deburghgraeve, on performing one of the pandemic’s most dangerous jobs”

Stranger

8

Amen!

9

Oh my lord.

I mean, I feel for the patient but even more for someone who has to witness that, person after person in deep water, all day long.

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Add home health care and elder care workers to that list as well: Washington Post: “ ‘Home care workers are the forgotten ones’”

Stranger

11

New York Times: “Hospital Workers Are Dying From Coronavirus. Here’s Why.”

Stranger

12

PBS NewsHour: “What these New York EMTs are seeing as they respond to COVID-19 cases”

Stranger

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+1

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I know that this is a little bit of a rant, but the front line workers don’t want thanks as much as they want PPE. As one nurse I saw put it “I didn’t sign up to be a martyr”. There’s a difference between soldiers who sign up for what they know is a dangerous job and health care workers who had a valid expectation of having protective equipment available. We wouldn’t send troops into battle without armour yet we send these civilians in without protection. We need to get angry. We need to do everything we can to get the proper PPE to those on the front lines. We also need to listen to them. Health care workers are being fired for speaking out about lack of PPE or suspended for buying their own. Yes, there are volunteers who are coming in to help out but there are also many others who are terrified of this virus. The sentiment I’ve heard is that it is wartime and we are just waiting to be drafted. If we don’t get some support, we are going to have a serious shortage. Health care workers seem to have a higher risk of severe disease, possibly because of increased viral load. The nurses, respiratory therapists and doctors we don’t lose to this virus directly, we may lose to PTSD, depression and burn out. Thanks and clapping aren’t enough. We need to help them out. Donate any PPE you are hoarding, advocate for use of the Defense Production Act to make supplies, and listen to them without punishing them when they tell the world what they need.

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Just to be clear, if my initial post offered any confusion, we should be doing far more than just thanking or applauding medical workers and first responders who are on the front lines of the COVID-19 epidemic. Unlike the the way we treated New York 9/11 first responders and servicepeople fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—by expressing gratitude when it was easy and then failing to support them when it became expensive or inconvenient—we need to remember them after this crisis is over and care for their complaints and recompense their sacrifices even if when it is costly and we’d rather forget this unfortunate time. Another debacle like how getting consensus for renewal of the Zadroga Act was essentially left up to a bunch of ailing first responders and a comedian-tuned-activist to shame legislators is unacceptable.

As for the anger over inadequate PPE, it is totally justified but anger doesn’t make manufacturing lines run faster. Despite the big news stories about applying the Defense Production Act to increase critical supplies of PPE and medical equipment, the fact is that the companies with the capability to produce these goods are already doing so at full volume because unlike the typical “just-in-time delivery” of normal operations that forces them to warehouse surplus production, right now they are shipping and selling products as fast as they can produce them, and many types of PPE are largely imported from abroad which means standing up new production lines which takes time regardless of attitude.

As for medical equipment, companies with the capability to shift their manufacturing to respirators are doing so because their production lines are elsewhile sitting idle. The big limiting factor may not be so much respirator machines themselves but the anesthetics and medications necessary for intubation and long term ventilation: Vox”: You can’t use ventilators without sedatives. Now the US is running out of those, too.”. Many anesthetics are also procured from foreign suppliers because they are just low margin products.

If you have protective or medical equipment (like CPAP/BiPAP machines) to donate ProjectN95.org is a national clearinghouse for distributing this equipment, and unlike the federal government will distribute it to where it is most needed rather than where a governor or mayor is politically favored.

Stranger

16

I wasn’t ranting directly against you** Stranger**. It’s just that these are my colleagues and it’s frustrating to feel so unable to help. We need to ramp everything up as you said but I do think it is important that we not get complacent and keep the headlines on the need for supplies until we have what we need.

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Vice News: “Doctors Around the World Explain What It’s Like to Battle Coronavirus”

Stranger

18

Another Amen from me.

A nod of recognition and appreciation to the housekeeping/janitorial staff who must clean and disinfect patient areas. A truly dirty job that must be done!
~VOW

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There should be a reckoning when/if all this is over. In Canada our healthcare system, at the best of times, is understaffed and underfunded. And outside of those folks there’s a huge population of minimum-wage people who are the last people facing the public.

All that to say “hear hear!” We all owe them big-time.

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Washington Post: “ More than 9,000 U.S. health-care workers have been infected with the coronavirus”

  • The number of American health-care workers with covid-19 has spiraled upward ever since. About 9,000 have had positive coronavirus tests as of April 9, according to a separate Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis released Tuesday that provides an early snapshot of infections in health-care workers across the country. They are mostly white, female and in their 40s, the report found. Although most were not sick enough to be hospitalized, 27 died, the CDC said. As with the rest of the U.S. population, most of the deaths occurred among those age 65 or older.

These numbers are believed to be a gross undercount of infections due to the continuing lack of available tests in many areas. Some regions and institutions are no longer testing health-care workers, reserving kits for the sickest patients.*

Stranger