Estoy luchando contra la política.

Coronavirus was officially labeled as a pandemic today.

Do you know what is more dangerous than a pandemic? The fear caused by a pandemic.

I came back from Anguilla and found everyone afraid. What should we do? and what will we do? Westchester, a little behind its surrounding hospitals here in New York considering its proximity to New Rochelle, finally rolled out its policies and protocols on what to do and when to do it today for us as employees of the hospital.

I have mixed feelings.

I had a patient come the other night as a bad trauma. Based on injuries, looking retrospectively, was the course unsurvivable? most likely. Was the patient already there when they even came to us? probably. What I can't justify in my head, is that we won't ever know. The patient came with a story completely unrelated to the trauma that a week prior had been to a doctor's office that might have possibly had a COVID-19 case. But no one could either confirm nor deny, and the only thing family could offer was that the patient was healthy, not even a cough. But the idea of it, caused such confusion and fear, that the fact that a patient lay in front of us needing help was placed on the back burner. The nurse assigned to the care, is honestly a very good nurse, but was exhibiting behaviour I had never seen in her before. She had an excuse of how or why she could not perform a single task to care for the patient, quoting policy after policy. As I rushed to throw in lines, she turned her back on me, commenting over her shoulder passive aggressively how I was not following protocol. As her blood pressure barely registered and we were about to loose a pulse, there wasn't time for protocol and passive aggressiveness incredibly inappropriate. In the end, my efforts futile as the blood so desperately needed sat in a cooler on the floor, the nurse refusing to let it be given, again quoting policy after policy.

Anger. I was so angry at the situation. Screaming in my head at everyone being so ridiculous, while our patient lay actively dying. I'm still angry. This is medicine in America. Policy and protocols created by non medical entities of business and insurance. Combine that with an individual's own desire for self-preservation and mix it all up with confusion and fear and you have created yourself a healthcare equation that has successfully eliminated all consideration of the actual patient.

Was our patient's injuries unsurvivable? as I said, most likely. But... could we have at least tried? attempted? anything?

When the WHO declares a virus as a pandemic, it is appropriate and necessary to respond with policy and protocol to protect the people of our communities, our countries, and of the entire world. However in so doing we can not loose reason to fear. We still must attend to the care of the sick and the need of the hurting.

Much Love.