Today they came. They came and took our protection away, reality set in, and the severity of what was upon us shook me to the core.
I have watched the news for weeks and saw how international teams were garbed up in their best protection with white suits and masks to keep the virus away. I knew that healthcare systems in the U.S. were short on personal protective equipment (PPE), but that wouldn't happen to us — would it? I figured we had ordered enough to get us through a month of this or at the very least a few weeks.
But I was so wrong.
I believed in the system, I believed that they would protect us since we were at the bedside every day. But I was so wrong.
I figured with all the money our nation has that a call to make our own masks would never be needed. But I was so wrong.
Today, I watched administrators come into our supply room on our unit and dig through our cabinets and shelves. One by one they took away my protection — the protection that would keep this from coming home to my family. They told us that it was for those that were higher risk, the greater good, and more would come. They told us that those hard mandates to use gloves with high cancer risk drugs were to be ignored.
Gloves, masks, shields used to protect us from other infectious diseases were a luxury we could not afford.
Because this virus is not the only deadly disease we fight every day. We needed to conserve supplies for high-risk areas. I watched administrators hide supplies from bedside staff. They make the choice of who is protected and who is not, without ever leaving their command center. Are we not supposed to be the greatest country in the word? And yet in the greatest time of need, our most trusted profession cannot even trust that they will be taken care of?
Today I felt the meaning of why politicians are calling this war. I realized that as a nurse, I am just a number — not a life that matters. Healthcare workers who swore their lives to protect others must do so with their heads held high knowing the risk they now face. We must protect everyone else, but not ourselves.
Today, I wept for my fallen nurses who I know may have been protected if only there were enough supplies. This is a virus from 2019, how did we as a country let this happen when we knew it was coming?
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But I am a nurse. I will protect you all until the end, with or without PPE that could save my life. I will hold your hand, provide the best care to you, and all the while I know the risk. Because I am a nurse. They took my protection from deadly illnesses away to give to high-risk areas, but they will not take away my heart to care for you until the end.
This is war, a war on a broken system and a virus.
Today they came. And today my heart sank, helpless and hopeless for what this means to be a nurse.
Sheetal Tadiparty
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