Böcker av Nurse T

March 25, 2020When I walk through the automatic doors into the ICU at 7 AM, I step into a war zone. There are overflowing trash buckets and debris scattered all over the unit. Four red crash carts are outside the rooms, their drawers open and largely empty, witnesses to the chaotic night. One of the patients who coded survived, the three others died. One body in a white plastic shroud is still in a room on theb ed waiting for a stretcher.So opens the personal diary of Nurse T. She is one of the thousands of health care workers in New York City who covered their twelve hour shifts day after day as the Covid-19 virus raged through the city. Her account is personal, poitnant and poetic as she documents the suffering of the poor, largely immigrant patients who flooded the facility seeking treatment.It is also the story of a city, state and federal government that long denied hospitals like hers the funding and support they need to meet current standards. Long starved for funds, the facility's ancient infrasturure and inadequate supplies placed a heavy burden on the staff, who nonetheless walked up the marble stairs all through the crisis and gave their best, whatever the personal cost, whatever the outcome.

In strong, unadorned prose, Nurse T chronicles her experience from January, 2020, when the first reports of a "novel virus" in China cause her concern, to the first cases trickling in to her hospital, to the avalanche of patients that soon overwhelm them. Her account of frantic efforts to save the patients is sometimes grim, always touching.This veteran ICU nurse's diary is also the story of a large New York City hospital that serves a poor population, mainly immigrants and people of color. The aging infrastructure, inadequate supplies and lack of bold, effective response to the pandemic all come to light in her diary.But the stories are not all tragic. There are moments of triumph and precious expressions of humor. And through it we see the solidarity and courage of the hospital workers who ventured back day after day, night after night, to fight a losing battle. ph and precious expressions of humor. And through it we see the solidarity and courage of the hospital workers who ventured back day after day, night after night, to fight a losing battle.The diary includes Meditations and Writing Exercises that will help health care and other essential workers heal their broken hearts.