NEW ORLEANS — Nurses and doctors who don’t normally provide critical care will have to attempt that in the coming days, and they worry they don’t have the training to pull it off.
As the coronavirus puts a greater burden on Louisiana hospitals, doctors and nurses in critical care are at a greater risk of getting sick. If they do get sick, they’ll need someone to replace them on the front lines.
Healthcare professionals we spoke with say they’re being moved to provide critical care for patients, but they say their skills aren’t the right ones of the job.
The doctors and nurses we spoke with didn’t want to go on camera because they fear they’ll lose their jobs.
Dr. Leo Seoane says there are some people being asked to do jobs they don’t normally do.
“But no one is out on an island,” Seoane said. “There’s always a critical care physician, a surgeon and an anesthesiologist working together to take care of this expansion of the critical care units.”
Some of them say they feel pressure to not get tested for the virus. The say they know there is a finite number of tests and they don’t want to use them up. They also say that if they test positive, they feel as if they’ll place a burden on their colleagues while they’re forced to stay home for two weeks.
But at some local hospitals like Ochsner, the message is that here should not be concern.
Warner Thomas, the CEO, says about 300 people among all of their hospital locations have had to be quarantined and about 40 have tested positive.
We also spoke to Dr. Brobson Lutz, the former New Orleans Health Director, who said that the best thing to do right now is plan as best as possible, but take it all day by day.
Hospital officials and other medical officials we spoke to say they believe anyone who works at a hospital is nimble enough to move into a new job. And they won’t be doing those jobs alone.
“We are able to move patients around when needed,” Dr. Seoane said. “We have an incredible amount of data we can use for modeling to see with this pandemic, where do we see our resource needs in the next week, the next two weeks. And we're mobilizing all of our talent in the system to be able to meet that."
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