Coronavirus and the Medical System

by Lauren m. ‘21

In the midst of COVID-19 we are already seeing shortages of medical equipment appear throughout the world. I’ve heard others describe our situation as feeling like a dream, a simulation. The only thing is, there’s currently no end in sight, and there’s no shortcut to the finish line. Already, nurses and doctors across the country are working 12+ hour shifts, and putting themselves in danger for the sake of helping others. Hospitals are filling up while streets are emptying. Many are making desperate attempts to shield themselves with makeshift versions of virus protection by covering their faces with scarves and old t-shirts. There is no excess of the stock that the medical world needs, and coronavirus has placed the country in an unexpected position.

COVID-19 has challenged hospitals with three major concerns: staff, supplies, and space. In regards to staff, medical professionals working on the front lines are at extreme risk for contracting the virus. This is dangerous for themselves and the people they are working with and around. In order to put a stop to the flow of the virus between medical workers, non-essential surgeries have been canceled and participating surgeons and nurses have been sent home. There is still concern for the remaining medical staff, though; many professionals have underlying health issues themselves, or are simply too old to handle the strain of contracting the virus or working for an extended period of time. In extreme cases, doctors within non-essential specialties are called back in to be trained in patient care, just in case the experts become infected. Hospitals are changing the rules for doctors who are not board certified so that they may begin helping, and even retired doctors are being called back in. In surgery, new techniques are being used for anesthesia, with surgeons using local anesthetics instead of general anesthesia to relieve the stress on anesthesiologists. This desperation is being seen across the country and has exhausted hospitals and medical professionals to nearly their limit. 

The second main concern is that essential supplies are running out. PPE, or personal protection equipment, is the main kind of protection. It is the critical equipment that medical professionals use to protect themselves when providing care. However, its availability is running short. At Stanford University, masks and other protective equipment are either locked or guarded by nurses to prevent them from being stolen by patients and hospital workers. Many doctors and nurses have begun to reuse gear that they ordinarily would have used only once. Furthermore, new ethical issues are arising due to this shortage of equipment: doctors have been forced to choose who gets a ventilator, a heartbreaking decision that can mean the difference between life and death. There is criteria for who will eventually be put on a ventilator, a device that breathes for the patient. These many examples of scarcity within hospitals are eye opening and extremely frightening.

The final concern is the limited amount of space that is left to take care of the staggering numbers of patients flowing into hospitals. In New York City, the epicenter for the virus, tents have been set up in Central Park to provide care. The United States has 95,000 ICU beds which have been already occupied, forcing new ideas to come up in order to handle the weight of patients. People seeking care would usually end up in the ICU, but with these extraneous circumstances, they are overflowing into makeshift spaces provided by hospitals. Coronavirus has been an extremely traumatic pandemic from the beginning, and these three concerns are growing ever more prevalent for today’s healthcare workers.