“Intensive care is the worst place in the entire hospital where you can be. We can do a lot, but we are not a holy grail: not everyone comes from here alive. You do not want to be here.
This department contains people who are so ill that we have to support or even take over their bodily functions. This is the case with corona patients: every patient is put on a ventilator here because they no longer breathe properly. They lie on their stomach, so that the lungs have more surface area to take in oxygen.
Not very common
“That is quite intense: we really only do that when it is necessary, it is a kind of rescue technique. It is not very common. Until this virus got hold of the world.”
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“Now we have ten corona patients on our ICU, ten people in a row, all on their stomachs, fighting for their lives. I think it’s a creepy sight. When I’m not working for a while and I see them lying there, then I think me: wow shit what’s this ?!
You sweat your heart out
“We all wear suits that are no meter long, but we do protect ourselves. We are helped with getting dressed. Someone check: glasses well? Gloves taped? No skin left?
You sweat your heart out. A colleague lost two pounds during one shift. Which is also annoying: you can not pee or eat for three hours, because you want to avoid having to take that whole suit off again – and on again. That takes an unnecessarily long time. Time we don’t have. “
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I have never experienced this
“It is flying. Running. But we get help. From surgery assistants, anesthetists, orthopedists, even urologists. I have never experienced this before. Many departments empty, the doctors there are so free to help us. That is beautiful, like: we do it together.
If new patients come in, it affects me. They are elderly people, but also people aged 60. Then I think: they still have to retire! That’s really not old. But it also makes me combative. I am the one who understands and can operate the ventilator. This is what I can do, so this is what I do. “
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“I’m not afraid of getting sick myself. But yes, I do hang my head over someone with an infectious, deadly virus. People cough, people sniff.
I am extra alert that the breathing tube does not come loose: that way particles can get into the air. But with such a suit on I don’t worry. The people who work in home care, such as my sister, or in a nursing home, such as my wife, I can worry about that a lot. “
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They keep the Netherlands going
Prime Minister Rutte said in his speech on TV to the whole of the Netherlands: ‘We must do this all together’. But what does that look like in everyday life?
With this series, RTL Nieuws places daily stories of the people who continue to work. The people who ensure that our society, as good and as bad as it goes, keeps going.
Read back?
Watch the previous episodes here
Tips, suggestions? Mail to [email protected].
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I taste fear
“The hardest part of this bizarre time is the fear and despair I taste. In the patients, because everyone knows: if you come on the ic with corona, you are not just rid of it.
I read about a 16 year old boy who is now off the ventilator. Good news. But our ten patients are not all cured yet. It worries me.
Especially the unpredictability of that disease. So erratic. Some seem to be improving, and before you know it they are going through a very deep valley physically again. “
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“The most intense thing is the phone calls to their loved ones. They should not be hospitalized because of the risk of infection. We have to tell them over the phone how they are doing – and these are not positive messages.
Even if someone is dying, and you know that’s going to happen to some patients sooner or later, only two people are allowed to join. Two. I understand, because of the safety of the other patients, the staff. I really get it. But I can only say that I find that incredibly screwed. “
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“These conversations are emotionally stressful. My colleagues and I therefore keep a close eye on each other. What does someone look like, do we take enough rest? We check together: is the suit still good? Do you see someone walking in such a unit and something is not right, then immediately: back to the lock No risks.
Not fresh anymore
“Because of those mouth masks you are sometimes not fresh anymore. You breathe out in that mask, CO2 also collects behind it, so you breathe yourself slowly drowsy. That’s why we all have to be alert. We now have a special team that the patients turn on their stomachs – and back on their backs when we think the patient can handle it, which is nice, because it is very intensive.
In this way we try to keep it as bearable as possible for each other. And we continue that way. Anyway.”
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