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This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and is republished with permission.
Healthcare workers are experiencing “near-traumatic stress” after feeling terrified of the Covid-19 pandemic, says a prominent anesthetist.
Dr. Vanessa Beavis was at the forefront of planning and preparation that took place in New Zealand hospitals as they prepared for Covid-19 patients.
A consultant to the Auckland hospital, she was tasked with preparing staff for the pandemic, and is also the new president of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anesthetists (ANZCA).
The staff was extremely anxious to get sick, and the stress was amplified by all the planning and uncertainty involved, he told Kim Hill in Saturday morning.
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“[The] The health workers themselves were terrified that they could catch this error, which was the experience abroad, and terrified that they would also take it home. Many people have young children.
“We have had people who were afraid, for example, that they would end up as single parents because they, their partner was one of our workers, or people who had people in the vulnerable age group they lived with, or taking care of parents elders, something like that. “
Auckland DHB increased its Covid-19 preparation in mid-March after seeing the effect the virus was having abroad, he said.
“Stories from our colleagues abroad and our formal and informal networks in the UK, you know, America everywhere, [were] just completely overwhelming.
“One morning everything seemed to be under control. And in the late afternoon, 18 patients had to be intubated, and during the night, another 50. And then we thought we were facing the apocalypse. And we had to start, you know, trying to get our systems up and running for that. “
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Clinical Director of the Auckland Regional Public Health Service, Dr. Julia Peters, says that technology cannot replace the person-to-person relationship.
But a “tsunami” of conflicting information from credible sources made it difficult to know what to believe.
Beavis said it was “almost paralyzing” the amount of work required to prepare the hospital for an influx of patients.
They had to step up training on personal protective equipment (PPE), including making YouTube videos in case not everyone could be trained in person, converting operating rooms into training rooms, and then solving the logistics of where they could staff stay if they had to. go in isolation.
While some staff members tested positive, hundreds of those who tested gave negative results.
Beavis said a tremendous amount of work has been done to prepare for Covid-19, which will hopefully be useful if there is another pandemic in the future.
Fortunately, the situation in New Zealand did not turn out to be what they feared it might be.
“We had been working in such a fluid environment and now it is almost like post traumatic stress, although it is not over, the level of anxiety is reduced or the activity frenzy, but people are still extremely anxious and it is a very fragile workforce” . . “
FEARS ABOUT DRUG ESCAPES
While Auckland DHB had enough PPE for now, there were concerns that it might be missing some drugs, Beavis said.
The general anesthetic propofol and the pain reliever fentanyl are among the drugs that may be hardest to come by, he said.
Global scarcity was part of the problem.
“We cannot manufacture because our workforce had to be isolated. And some of them are supply chain problems. And then part of this is because other people are better payers and bigger markets than us.
“But I have to say that Pharmac is aware and is working very, very hard to provide us with a secure supply. So if they can’t do it, it’s not because of the need to try, that’s for sure. ”
The drug shortage was a particular concern as the hospital was trying to catch up on elective surgeries, which will take a long time, Beavis said.
“We are probably close to 2,000 overdue patients in elective patients. If you think we do about 1,000 general anesthetics per week or provide anesthesia to about 1,000 patients per week. Theoretically, that would be about two to three weeks, 41 operating rooms at full time working only on update numbers.
“Now clearly, we are not going to be able to do that, it will only be a matter of expanding what we already do. So it will take some time. “
This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and is republished with permission.
RNZ
