ERs are now swamped with seriously ill patients — but most don’t even have COVID
Enlarge this image
An ambulance crew weaves a gurney through the halls of Sparrow’s Emergency Department. Overcrowding has forced the staff to triage patients, putting some in the waiting rooms, and treating others on stretchers and chairs in the halls.
Lester Graham/Michigan Public Radio
hide caption
toggle caption
Lester Graham/Michigan Public Radio
Enlarge this image
Tiffani Dusang is the director of of emergency and forensic nursing at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, MI. As overworked nurses leave, she struggles to staff every shift, and works hard to keep remaining nurses from burning out.
Lester Graham/Michigan Public Radio
hide caption
toggle caption
Lester Graham/Michigan Public Radio
Enlarge this image
A nurse talks to a patient on a stretcher in the hallway of the Emergency Department at Sparrow Hospital.
Lester Graham/Michigan Public Radio
hide caption
toggle caption
Lester Graham/Michigan Public Radio
Enlarge this image
A medical student from the College of Osteopathic Medicine at Michigan State University consults with a patient in the hallway of the Sparrow Hospital ER.
Lester Graham/Michigan Public Radio
hide caption
toggle caption
Lester Graham/Michigan Public Radio
Lester Graham/Michigan Public Radio
To help fill the staffing gaps, Sparrow’s ED has hired about 20 so-called «baby nurses,» a term for brand new nurses. To bring them on board, the hospital waived its previous requirement for working in the ER — at least one year of nursing experience elsewhere — and many of these new nurses are fresh out of nursing school. Right away, they’re begun their careers by diving into the deep end, even though they’re still training.
«I need some assistance,» one of these new nurses whispers to her supervisor, holding up an IV bag. She can’t get the top open. «It just pushes in, doesn’t it?»
The veteran nurse takes it and shows her: «You gotta twist it so those line up,» she says. With a breathy but grateful «Thaaaank youuuu!» the baby nurse turns, peels off towards the patient’s room.
Kelly Spitz has been an Emergency Department nurse at Sparrow for 10 years. But lately, she has also fantasized about leaving. «It has crossed my mind several times,» she says, and yet she continues to come back. «Because I have a team here. And I love what I do,» she says, but then starts to cry. It’s not the hard work, or even the stress. It’s not being able to give her patients the kind of care and attention she wants to give them, and that they need and deserve.
She still thinks a lot about a particular patient who came in a while ago. His test results revealed terminal cancer. Spitz spent all day working the phones, hustling case managers, trying to get hospice care set up in the man’s home. He was going to die, and she just didn’t want him to have to die here, in the hospital, where only one visitor was even allowed. She wanted to get him home, and back with his family.
«I was willing to take him home in my own car, because we were waiting and waiting and waiting for an ambulance, because they’re not available,» Spitz said. Finally, after many hours, they found an ambulance to take him home.
Three days later, the man’s family members called Spitz: he had died, as she expected. But he had died surrounded by family. They were calling to thank her.
«I felt like I did my job there, because I got him home,» she says. But that’s a rare feeling these days. «I just hope it gets better. I hope it gets better soon.»
At 4 pm, the emergency department is the busiest it’s been all day. The patients waiting in the halls seem especially vulnerable, silently witnessing the controlled chaos rushing by them. One woman is sleeping or unconscious on a stretcher, naked from the waist down. Someone has thrown a sheet over her, so she’s partially covered, but part of her hips and legs are bare, and open sores are visible on her calves.
As one shift approaches its end, Dusang faces a new crisis: the overnight shift is even even more short-staffed than usual.
«Can we get two inpatient nurses?» she asks, hoping to borrow two nurses from one of the hospital floors upstairs.
«Already tried,» replies nurse Troy Latunski.
Without more staff, it’s going to be hard to care for new patients who come in overnight — from car crashes or seizures or other emergencies.
But Latunski’s got a plan: he’ll go home now, snatch a few hours of sleep, and return at 11 p.m. to work the overnight shift in the ER’s overflow unit. That means he will be largely caring for eight patients, alone. On just a few short hours of sleep. But right now, that is their only, and best, option.
Dusang considers for a moment, takes a deep breath and nods. «Ok,» she says.
«Go home. Get some sleep. Thank you,» she adds, shooting Latunski a grateful smile. And then she pivots, because another nurse is already approaching her with an urgent question. It’s on to the next crisis.
- Sparrow Hospital
- crowded emergency department
- emergency room boarding
- nurse burnout
Комментарии 0