“Don’t leave this hospital”: What the staff see in the Cleveland Clinic ICU

Cleveland (WJW) – Every moment is uncertain for hundreds of COVID patients in the Cleveland Clinic intensive care unit.

The medical ICU on the main campus will reach capacity during this holiday season.

“This last wave was very timely … I saw some families exposed thanks to Thanksgiving,” said ICU director Eduardo Millerez. “A family who lost multiple members at the same time.”

It is very clear to these caregivers that the virus is opaque outside the walls of the clinic.

“This bed is currently open, but it only fills up. They are already welcoming patients here to take care of them from either our ED or our regional hospitals,” Millerez said. Temporarily passed an empty room and said.

For the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic, WJW was granted access to the Cleveland Clinic on Wednesday and saw people infected with COVID and people traveling non-stop to save them.

“Three to four out of ten people who need a respiratory tract are not going to leave this hospital. They are alive … but overall, about 20%, with or without a respiratory tract. ICU. Eighteen to twenty percent of patients who come across are not willing to achieve that, “said Dr. Hassan Kuri, President of Critical Care Medicine.

In this ICU, 43 out of 64 patients are infected with COVID, and according to the clinic, about 80%, like Jennifer Rogoski’s husband Ed, are unvaccinated.

“Yesterday morning he had to use a ventilator. It was very scary and scary because there are so many variables in the ventilator. He is afraid to continue it. We really didn’t have the opportunity to say face-to-face. Using FaceTime, we had to say, “OK, God has regained your back,” she said. Said.

On Thursday, I was looking for a 52-year-old woman with diabetes, and Jennifer now believes she will benefit from this shot.

“People who have an underlying condition will find it helpful to get the vaccine. I had a long conversation with a respiratory therapist about the vaccine yesterday, and he said it was him or someone of us. He said it would really help get it.

Caregivers say that striving to get the patient and his family shot is a constant battle of education. This is especially true when people see breakthroughs in their eyes.

“The number of healthy patients who are vaccinated, infected with COVID, and even reach here is very rare. They may get it, but they do not reach the intensive care unit. Vaccines , Helps prevent you from ending up in ICU … and creates a series of changes in your body that won’t disappear immediately, “Milleres said.

What scares these ICU workers is how many of their patients are young.

“Recently every day and their age, that is, you have them in their 70s and 80s, but they are in their mid-30s. They seem to be my age. In my unit, I have that pass. There are people who went to high school, “said Colleen Mckeown, Acute Care Nurse Practitioner.

Every time a nurse, doctor, or respiratory therapist needs to go to the hospital room to protect himself, they need to wear a brand new PPE.

When a nurse was asked how many times that day changed.She said about 15 or 16 times from 8am around 11:30 am

ICU’s emotions are strong.

“I’m tired of coming in and seeing people get so sick and die. I’m tired of fighting people. When many know they aren’t. I’m sick of asking people to do the right thing. I’m just exhausted, “said respiratory therapist Stephanie Dota.

“We are tired. We are very, very tired,” said nurse Lynn Murray when she began to feel emotional. “Well, I didn’t expect to do that. I wouldn’t suffocate even such a person, but as I said, you can do this Not so long, the sales here, you come in and hit the ground, and it’s the same over and over again. ”

Caregivers believe that relaxed thinking and COVID fatigue have returned to the numbers they had a year ago.

When I saw people not taking proper safety measures in places like grocery stores, they all said how angry they were.

“To them, it feels like they’re rolling dice. I hope you don’t get sick. In this kind of climate, these varieties and all the numbers come back, so you I hope you do. Don’t get sick, and I’ll see you inside out, “Murray said.

As the days go by, whatever the hope they are hugging, Dota says it will continue to dim.

“I don’t feel that there are many reasons why I can’t hope anymore that everything else is happening right now. That’s really sad, but until more people get vaccinated, I’ll lose. I feel like I’m doing it. ”