Healthcare Duders?

Hey all, I was just curious if there are any other GB community members out there working in healthcare. I'm working as a porter in a large hospital campus in Ontario, Canada. We have multiple confirmed COVID cases in area with a few admitted here and the number, like everywhere else, is expected to skyrocket soon. Especially with our hospital being sort of a healthcare hub for surrounding towns. I have a lot of patient contact in my job and thinking about where we're headed can get stressful quickly. The barrage of emails containing constantly shifting policies as the situation evolves isn't helping either.

If you are a healthcare worker, how has your facility responded? Do you feel safe working where you are? Interested to hear any thoughts people might have. Or maybe some questions non-healthcare workers might have about what it's like for us now.

i'm healthcare-adjacent. i'm an admin that supports a residency/training program in nyc- and i feel like we're on the cusp of some big changes (nyc seems to be 10 days or so ahead of ontario, and 10 days or so behind california).

my program isn't in a critical care subspecialty- as a result my residents have been able to reduce their work hours on the floor and most of our attendings' surgeries have been drastically reduced (due to cancelling of elective surgeries). that said at the close of business on friday we got a rumor that our floor in the hospital is being converted into a COVID-19 overflow area, and that our residents might eventually be conscripted into mandatory service to deal with the anticipated surge.

i'm fortunate that while i work directly for the hospital i've also been told to work from home since it's almost entirely admin in nature. but it seems everyone i support (attendings, residents) are basically waiting for the call that they're COVID-19 doctors now. i'll have a better idea what's going on tomorrow, though.

respect to @bigevil1987 and any other frontline workers out there- stay safe and healthy!

@mellotronrules: Similar to your facility there has been a lot of prep work here. Entire floors have emptied with patients being either discharged or moved to other areas and an extra wing of our critical care unit that's usually used for storage has been opened and prepped. And there is likely to be a lot of redeploying of frontline staff to other areas if they have the experience. Everyone is running on caffeine and a constant mild level of anxiety.

And I'll echo the sentiment, stay safe everyone. And seriously, stay at home if possible.

Working in shielded unit with people who have severe dementia. We are still working as usual no reduced crew which i personally find a bit odd. But i feel safe for the time being, i live in a small town and there are no confirmed cases of the virus here still so that helps.

That said i would rather be at home with my wife and daughter.

My wife works in the largest Hospital in Chicago as a CT Tech and its a clusterfuck. She's been interacting with COVID patients all day every day for the last week as the best diagnostic we have is a Chest CT. They barely have any PPE equipment and her managers are always changing policy and down playing the need for N95 masks to downplay the fact they are running out. It sucks, and I wish my wife would quit wish I know is a selfish thing.

I have my own face respirator with the proper filters if she ever needs it - though he managers did say they couldn't use PPE brought from home. It sucks.

I'm a med student in Ontario. Don't really have anything helpful to add to the facility response, but this stuff has been really crappy as a trainee. Just super limited options, opportunities and I feel super unprepared. I hope y'all are doing okay given the stress of the last year, it's been so hard, especially for hospital support staff <3

@lunderwood: I mean I work in one of the highest risk fields for this and we see so many positive patients per day, and tbh, we don't always follow full PPE policy every time we enter the room depending on what we're doing, and none of us vaccinated caregivers are catching it... shit, we have many unvaccinated and even they haven't shown signs. At least, nobody has been suspected. But all the tools are always there to be safe and as long as you're using them it's so so unlikely. It's truly nothing to be frightened about. You're probably more likely to catch it outside of work depending on where you work at.

@onfayno: Just eat healthy, workout out, and sleep enough. That should be enough unless you're in a at-risk-group. Definitely get the vaccine and boosters if you haven't already.

Maybe you are infected by covid