WHERE ARE THEY NOW:
COVID-19 Response
more sophisticated cousin, the BiPAP, I signed up to help on the COVID-19 wards if and when needed. We are using these devices in cases when a ventilator may not be yet required, but some kind of respiratory support is clearly needed. Photo credit: Doug Nicholson, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Rui de Sousa ’88 provides us with this dispatch COVID-19: Tales from the Other Side We shut down the Sunnybrook sleep lab in mid-March, as soon as the Ontario and Canadian governments started to declare emergency procedures. Sleep labs are at higher risk for spreading this virus because some of our tests involve aerosol generating procedures, namely the Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) and Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure (BiPAP) tests. Since then, we have gone to a skeleton crew, while still seeing some patients, new and old, via telemedicine. Like everything new, there is always a learning curve, and not all patients are familiar or comfortable with computers, much less with video conferencing. But we do our best to work through these technical challenges and manage our patients. All hospitals in Ontario are limiting the number of visitors during the COVID-19 pandemic to help keep patients and staff safe. There just aren’t as many patients here physically as before the outbreak. Some staff are being re-deployed throughout the hospital, to support the true frontline heroes of this pandemic. We are staffing different posts, screening at hospital entrances, limiting visitors, and providing directions to the sick and injured. We are also transporting some patients to different parts of the hospital. We are distributing surgical masks (the non-N95 masks) to all staff at various distribution posts throughout the hospital. Some are also supporting non-COVID-19 patients with their daily care. All of these efforts are to help free up and support staff working directly with COVID-19. Early on, as with many healthcare organizations, Sunnybrook adopted a position of ‘hope for the best, but prepare for the worst’. We moved quickly to postpone most elective procedures and moved non-critical patients, with the goal of maximizing the institutional reserve capacity. We began receiving daily (sometimes hourly) updates on general preparedness. Personal protective equipment (PPE), especially the N95 masks and visors/face shields, were inventoried and allocated to areas that expected high use, and refresher training was quickly implemented. The hospital also put forth a questionnaire to query all staff on additional skills that may be needed to fight this virus, in a worst-case, all-handson-deck scenario. Having years of experience with CPAP and its
But this pandemic isn’t just about physical health; it also takes a toll on mental and emotional health. The stress of commuting to the hospital every day, on public transit, mingling with strangers and surfaces that increase your chance of bringing this threat home, can be overwhelming. Many of us in healthcare, including some of my colleagues and friends, have moved out of our homes and into garages, spare rooms, or second homes. We now spend weeks away from our loved ones, spouses, children, friends, and family. If we have to go home, it is often with a mask on our face and with minimal physical contact. I have seen friends break down because their usual social supports have been eroded. Social distancing at work, with the very people that could have given us the most support, slowly chips away at all of us. We go ‘home’ to an empty building… and those are the lucky ones. Insomnia is common. Fear is ever present, especially in the quiet evenings spent alone. Fear of the unknown (for much is unknown), but also fear of the known (for what we do know about COVID-19 is truly scary). No, it isn’t all doom and gloom, but when you are in the trenches, all you see is mud. And yet there is hope. And there are triumphs. In the midst of all the heartbreak, we are united, as a world community, in unprecedented ways. Many of the greatest medical and scientific minds are all focused on a treatment or vaccine. Some of the most sophisticated healthcare and pharmacological companies ever assembled are working toward the same goal. Manufacturing companies, unrelated to medicine, have retooled to lend support and equipment in this fight. So many individuals have contributed, either through sewing one mask at a time, or donating lunches to overworked doctors, nurses, and other frontline staff… right down to you. You. It may sometimes feel like you are simply sitting at home and ‘doing nothing’, but trust me, you are doing much more than you could ever believe. You are making a huge impact by staying at home. You are contributing to this fight by taking away the ammunition this virus needs. So, the take-home lesson is: please take care and stay safe. Keep this virus at a minimum in the wild. Keep the numbers of sick well below our current capacity. And when this is all over, just give me three or four days straight to catch up on some sleep. God bless, Rui de Sousa ’88
OUR ST. MICHAEL’S COLLEGE SCHOOL COMMUNITY WILL BE STRONGER BECAUSE WE FACED IT TOGETHER
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