CoVID Pressures

We see things we shouldn't have to see, day after day after day. No sleep and no time to recover. We go to people who have been dead for a while, we witness deaths, we take people away from their families to die. It takes an emotional toll, how couldn't it? This pandemic has made it worse than ever, no longer are we able to allow family members to grieve, we cant let them see their loved ones or say goodbye to them, they can't come with us in the ambulance, they are not allowed to visit the hospital.

For example, the last 2 jobs I attended yesterday. *details changed for patient anonymity.

The 89 year old with cold sepsis, her finger and lips blue, saturations at 80% on 15l/min O2, we see this and we know its worth her husband saying goodbye, just in case, because the chances are she wont come home. But, he isnt allowed to hold her hand with her as we travel to hospital, he isn't allowed to call family to come and visit her. He may not be allowed to attend her funeral if any tests show she has CoVID as he will need to self isolate for 14 days.

The 50 year old who felt a bit of tiredness and shortness of breath. Whose 12-lead shows he is having a STEMI. His father died at 49 years old, his mother had a heard attack the week before. He has to go to hospital without his wife or son, he cried when the doctors told him they have to do urgent surgery on him to pull the clot out of his heart. He couldn't speak to his wife on the phone due to his voice shaking from fear. Whilst we usually rush through the doors into theatres for this sort of job, he had to sit with us on the ambulance, terrified, for about half an hour. The surgeons had to deep clean the operating room as their last patient had likely had CoVID, and then they had to don their additional PPE. The pateint and I couldn't talk that much whilst we waited, as the masks we had to wear muffled our voices.

I was asked to work a 22 hour shift, that is illegal in my country. My crewmates told me to go home, they would cover for me. The resourcing staff are overwhelmed, they can't cope with having so many of us off ill and mistakes like that are being made. We only know our shifts for the next 2 weeks, and they often change day by day. I am currently working day shifts followed by night shifts, followed by day shifts, followed by night shifts (..do you see the pattern) with barely enough time to sleep between them. Theres no time to unpack what we go to, no time to recover or relax.

Daily we are sent multiple messages starting like "can all crews remember" "is everyone able to keep in mind" "please do x when..." "lets all remember to" - whilst individually these are not big requests, they add up. Theres only so much we can keep in mind when our minds are full of the last incidents we atteneded.

The patients we are going to are sicker than what we usually see. The nonsense calls have reduced because people are (rightfully) scared to go to hospital, so are not calling us unless they actually need us. We do not get a break on shift, its constant. If something goes wrong, someone dies. Things are going to start slipping, its a scary time to work in healthcare. This anxiety manifests itself in strange ways, for example, my crewmate was taking his temperature every hour yesterday, he was worried he wouldn't notice if it went up and he might start accidentally spreading CoVID.

I am not sure what the solution is. But, to those of you struggling with work at the moment, you are not alone. To everyone else - stay home.

@adventurousBranch3786 @EMSFireChic1985 @ilikecake22 @MistyMagic @PoliteOcean @RicochetJaguar @AstronomySkies @Mherapai1967