Yesterday, I received an email from Governor Cuomo asking about my availability to be part of the surge, where they are training and employing nurses to be on the front line of care during this pandemic. I am assuming I received it as I am newly licensed in NY state for my job.

Today, I learned from a nurse colleague of this story of an assistant nurse manager dying of COVID19. He had been treating COVID19 patients, was hospitalized March 17, and passed away Tuesday. Kious Jordan Kelly, RN, may he rest in peace, was only 48 years old. It was reported that he had asthma.

Unfortunately, he worked at one of the hospitals, Mount Sinai West Hospital, where nurses were reportedly short on PPE and using trash bags for PPE.

The nurses were also posting that they were out of masks and they were reusing disposable ones, along with reusing face guards that are simply wiped and reused. Some nurses are stating that the hospital should be held responsible for Nurse Kelly’s death, as they failed to provide him with proper PPE. Despite the pictorial evidence, Mt Sinai denies that the staff doesn’t have proper PPE.

I am seeing a bit of a shift in social media, where nurses are starting to resign or refuse to work due to lack of PPE. Nurses, in general, appear to be more accepting of the idea that some nurses have decided that it’s not worth the personal risk. I think we have to consider that the amount of stress and anxiety this pandemic has caused can also decrease immunity and stress resilience. We need to take care of each other.

Meanwhile, many states are calling for new grad RNs who may not even be licensed yet to be trained and allowed to work in these settings. We all know that ER and ICU type nursing skills that COVID19 patients require are not created overnight: it takes many nurses years of learning and growing toward expertise to be truly effective in these settings. This brings to mind questionable standards of care; as the population in need grows, we will lack the ability to provide skilled care that is needed. Some hospitals are trying to do rapid ICU classes, in literally 2-3 days, attempting to train nurses with some experience to become ICU prepared. I don’t know if that is really effective or possible, and I also don’t have other solutions to offer. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Lastly, I leave you with this great link to the New England Journal where Dr’s Ranney, Griffith, and Jha discuss much of what I have also written about around the Defense Production Act. We need the President to actually enact so ventilators and PPE can be manufactured and distributed here. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006141

Please, take action: contact your congressional members and the white house and demand that action be taken. https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials