ICU doctors and nurses were depressed by the misery of “unnecessary” COVID-19. “Patient is still dying”

Nine patients were waiting for their fate in the intensive care unit of Colton, California — Arrowhead Community Medical Center.

The youngest was 26 years old and the oldest was 66 years old. Four of them had already been intubated and were the last effort to save lives. In an undecorated room on the fourth floor, they lay alone in the dark, flattened their bellies, and calmed down because the pain in the tube flowing through their throat was too great.

The number of COVID-19 patients in the unit on Wednesday morning was about double that of a few weeks ago. However, this was a different kind of surge than last winter. The hospital had to see well over 100 COVID patients at peak times and create a temporary ICU from the post-anesthesia care unit.

Over the past seven days, San Bernardino County-run public hospitals have an average of 20 COVID-positive patients.

The number of hospitalizations was not as severe as last winter, but there was a melting frustration. All ICUCOVID patients were not individually vaccinated.

“It’s definitely frustrating, especially now that vaccines can almost prevent this from happening,” said Beth Koerikar, ICU’s nurse, gesturing in the room behind her. Three people died last Sunday.

All that unnecessary, depressed.

“Patients are still dying at an alarming rate and are not all vaccinated,” she said. “They didn’t stop dying for two years. It’s hard to deal with it for so long.”

Healthcare workers are worried about what’s coming as vacations and authorities prepare for the epidemic of the highly infectious variant of Omicron. Already, Riverside and San Bernardino counties have higher COVID-19 infection rates than the rest of Southern California.

In San Bernardino County, only 59% of residents of all ages are vaccinated at least once. According to county data, the mortality rate of unvaccinated people in the county is almost 10 times higher than that of fully vaccinated people.

Dr. Robert Kim Farley, an epidemiologist and infectious disease expert at UCLA Fielding, said: Faculty of Public Health. “The severe hospitalizations and deaths that are occurring today are virtually all preventable just by vaccination of people.”

Twenty-five COVID patients were scattered throughout Colton Hospital on Wednesday. Of these, 16 were unvaccinated, 3 were asymptomatic, 1 was partially vaccinated, and 5 were unknown. Many of them were housed on the 4th floor.

At the four North ICUs, more than 70 stockings were stretched along the windows last Wednesday. The name of each staff member of the unit was printed on top of the penguins, gifts and snowflakes.

Nearby stood a tree ordered by Amazon, the manager of the critical care center, Zorina Hernandez. Koelliker, a registered nurse, came an extra day to help decorate the flower decorations with bows, tinsel, and red, green, and gold ornaments.

Koelliker brought cupcakes and a holiday headband to keep him feeling bright. She wore a snowflake, a bell, a Santa hat, and a sweater adorned with a 36.5 (Celsius) thermometer. It was her “ugly sweater”.

The walls between the rooms were hung with a miniature Christmas tree and a red globe with the words “Merry Christmas.” The festive spirit believed in a difficult situation for the patient inside.

One woman had been on ventilator for nearly two weeks, so it probably didn’t come off. Hospital staff started talking to her family about palliative care. The hospital allows visits of COVID patients at the end of life, but families are only allowed outside the room.

“It’s really hard for families to deal with, they can’t hold the hand of their loved ones,” Koelliker said.

A 66-year-old man in the next room was recently hospitalized. He used a high flow of oxygen, but was close to the threshold at which intubation was required. The same was true for the women in the corridor.

When Koelliker experienced each patient’s age (60s, 50s, 40s, 20s), he showed another trend seen by county health workers in the last six months. The patient is younger than he was originally. Pandemic.

According to Koelliker, the younger they are, the more likely they are to be involved in the underlying illness. “No other health problems have occurred,” she said, rarely seeing young patients.

Shortly before 9am, a nurse (1 in 2 patients) administered morning medication and evaluated it. They wore a yellow isolation gown, white and gray shoe covers, and a controlled air purification respirator known as a CAPR helmet.

A beeping sound from the room signaled that the patient’s oxygen had dropped to 84, and Koelliker looked inside. The 44-year-old woman was not dyspnea, probably just finished eating, causing a fall.

Still, Koelliker broke the door and asked, “Are you okay?” A woman who has not yet been intubated has been informed that she has been intubated.

Just before Thanksgiving, Hernandez said the hospital went for 48 hours in the ICU with no COVID patients. After the vacation, “the numbers are just starting to grow,” the unit manager added.

Asked if he was afraid of more incidents, Koelliker said: Winter is here. “

“We are prepared for the worst, but we look forward to something better,” said Hernandez, a registered nurse.

Around 10 am, Dr. Curtis Converse, an emergency physician, examined the patient. He took a chest x-ray of a patient in his 40s.

There were no major changes to her cloudy chest film, he said staff gathered outside her room.

“The devastation of the lungs is pretty intense,” he said. “Unfortunately, this patient is quite young and in mid-adult. Very, very ill.”

In the room, I could only see the top of the woman’s head on the teal blanket. She lay on her stomach in a prone position.

According to Converse, some patients are angry 16 hours a day to help their lungs get more oxygen. They had a respiratory tract in their throat and the other was urinating with a jugular vein drip.

“The serious illness caused by COVID is not comfortable,” Converse said.

According to Koelliker, working in the ICU is “a balanced act of resting and keeping the spiritual space open.” She started hiking this year as a form of self-care.

On her first hike in January, she breathed in fresh mountain air and began to cry.

“I knew that there were people here who couldn’t breathe and who had just died that morning or the night before, and you felt very guilty,” she said.

Koelliker remembered the deceased patient. One was a newly-married couple who had just married a week ago. I had a mother and a son. Newborn patient.

All three who died on Sunday were not vaccinated, Koerikar said. By the time they arrived in the ICU, the vaccine was too late to give them hope.

Some patients regret not having been vaccinated, while others have categorically insisted that they have not been vaccinated yet, Koelliker said.

She complained that members of her family were also resistant to vaccination.

“I can see it here with my own eyes,” Koelliker said. “We are still dying of patients.”

“If they can see what we are seeing,” Hernandez said.