Monica Leah told Newton that she turned on the dangerous lights in her car and drove her mom, Eileen McRane, 100 miles an hour to get to the emergency room in Gulfport, Mississippi, where an elderly woman was working as a nurse on the 19th floor.
On the evening of August, the oxygen level in the brain dropped to a level that could damage the brain. Newton’s mother never returned home after testing positive for Covid-19 at the hospital. Seventy days later in November, she died at the same hospital where she treated coronavirus patients.
Newton said of his mom, “What I call her best friend and hero,” said Newton, “I was literally watching her slowly deteriorate. “He was losing everything my mom saw. My mom is the strongest human in the world and she was slowly pulling him away from this virus. “
What bothers Newton is that no one knows exactly how many health care workers have died, like his mother – thus the sacrifices they made and the pain they suffered from an illness they worked so hard to overcome.
U.S. Covid-19 mortality continues to rise, with the deaths of front-line health care workers largely unaccounted for. Doctors, nurses, paramedics and support staff have bravely taken great risks during the epidemic, which has been the biggest health hazard for more than 100 years, but there is no specific count of deaths for them. These are the same people who got vehicles at the end of their transfers and accusations from the president and high-ranking members of the government and industry.
That would make Newton particularly hard.
One last time she saw her mom, Newton shared the news that she had passed the board certifying test to become a registered nurse. Now working in a hospital in New Orleans, she tries to follow in her mom’s footsteps and make sure her hero is remembered.
“We don’t even know what or who we lost,” Newton said. “My mom went through this epidemic. She helped these people, and if my family hadn’t said anything, they would have just said she’s another number. “
U.S. deaths due to Covid-19 and related complications It is not easy to calculate the exact number of health care workers and it is getting harder as time goes on. There is no accurate or centralized database with that information.
Virginia anesthesiologist Dr. Claire Rezba has a national match Published on his Twitter account From March, when the epidemic began to spread in the United States.
I don’t think health care systems have served by not advertising what’s going on inside their walls.
It maintains its count through tributes, media reports, social media, monuments and any other means it can find. Every day, Rezba tweets about the deaths of nurses, doctors, emergency medical technicians, specialists and staff members.
Her count has reached about 1,700, a figure she has calculated for Rs.
“Whenever I think it’s time to stop – because it hurts me, there’s one side of it hurting – I see another story or some posts,” Rezba said. “And I think, ‘Just one more. I just have to make sure people see more of this. ”
“Looks like there’s no one else to take the lead on.” “It simply came to our notice then. I mean, this is ridiculous. Really, that’s ridiculous. “
A September report by National Nurses United, a nursing union, estimated that the deaths of more than 1,700 health care workers since the onset of the epidemic were slightly higher than Rezba.
As of December 22, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest figures show 955 deaths and more than 288,000 infections of health care workers. In those cases of Covid-19 among health care workers, the CDC only confirmed 75.7 percent of the time whether it was the death of a doctor, nurse, paramedic or support staff member.
A health and human services spokesman said the number is not widespread and noted that the state health department may have more accurate data.
Critics of the federal coronavirus response say the national count could be hampered by White House intervention. The administration announced its decision very abruptly in July that the Department of Health and Human Services should take the hospital’s coronavirus data collection from the CDC, making it difficult to comply with hospital trends and data reporting.
“There has been widespread resistance from the healthcare industry to provide transparent information about the loss of nurses and other health care workers due to Covid-1,” said a study by National Nurses United. “At the same time, federal, state and local governments have failed to push health care facilities to provide these data.”
It is difficult to know which calculation is correct. According to the Nursing Union, only 15 states provide the number of infections for healthcare workers on a weekly basis, and it was not until May that Medicare and Medicaid Centers were provided with information on infections and deaths of its workers through nursing homes. Services.
While the public can now access that information from nursing homes, hospitals do not need to share their data.
“I don’t think health care systems have served by not advertising what’s going on inside their walls.” “A lot of deaths for health care workers are actually a kind of secret. They are impatient under the pillow. ”
Rezba stressed that the deaths also included the lack of skills and knowledge of these healthcare workers.
Newton said it was true of her mother, a nurse with decades of experience who taught her the elements of nursing, she said she could never learn in school.
“My mom fought 100 percent teeth and nails for her patients.” “And we’ve lost it, society has lost it – we’ve lost someone who would have fought for everyone and with whom he interacted.”
The last time Newton was able to see his mother, he could not speak later because of tubes in his mouth, but McRae acknowledged the news that his daughter had passed a nursing board exam.
“She was responsive, but she lost it,” said Newton. “She wasn’t there anymore.”
Catherine Hancock, chief care officer at the Cleveland Clinic, which oversees 70,000 health care, said the federal government does not need hospitals to provide data on infection and mortality rates for health care workers and does not have a central reporting structure to maintain it. Workers.
The Cleveland Clinic is bursting at the seams in its medical facilities, she said. He reports those statistics and supports his staff through hospitalization and quarantine. So far, one has died, but the staff has been physically and emotionally drowned by the epidemic.
“We keep track of it and talk about it all day: we’re clearly looking for our patients, but we’re also looking for the number of caregivers who are out because of Covid-19, who are positive, who are in the hospital and who Is back at work, “Hancock said. “So we have a very good handle to be honest with you, and I don’t know why anyone else has such a problem.”
Without anyone investigating this death, it is left to families, friends and communities who are sure that their sacrifices will not be forgotten for the families, friends and communities who lost health care workers. All of this makes for more relief for many as the holidays and the desire to join family come together.
