Thanks
I don’t really know anything specific about the production of new ventilators, aside from what most of us heard. We had actually just bought 7 new ventilators right before the China virus hit that were intended to replace the 7 ventilators we had for years that didn’t offer the newest technology. Before we traded in the old vents, the virus hit and we were able to keep them all. Do you mean is it generally worse to place a COVID patient on a ventilator than not?
Nothing too crazy as far as meds….just the standard. Remdesivir for 5 days, Dexamethasone for 10 days or much longer if still critically ill- but then we wean the patient off it SLOWLY after that. Then there is Tocilizumab which is given only once depending on certain criteria and severity. I haven’t seen anyone get convalescent plasma forever. I’m not quite sure what happened to that- oh, I just found that it was determined to not offer any significant benefit.
Some people get admitted on a day that I am working and then I go back to work 3 or 4 days later and they are discharged. Other people make very sudden changes for the worse in terms of oxygen requirements, and that’s when it becomes a very lengthy stay.
Other people may remember me talk a few months ago about an 85 yo vaccinated man who developed COVID PNA. I had a brain fart as he is actually 90 yo and was a patient of ours for 2.5 months! Perfectly healthy 90 yo man who is 6’4” and was in great physical and mental shape for his age. He was still very active and even did some work from his IPad. He escaped being on a ventilator, but he was on very high oxygen for most of his stay. If the virus didn’t destroy his lungs, oxygen toxicity did.
He just left yesterday and I was the first RT to initially see him in the ED, and I was also the one there to say goodbye. He will be on 4L oxygen while at rest, and 6L with any activity probably forever. By activity I mean getting out of bed and moving to the chair right beside it and still struggling to catch his breath. He went to rehab so maybe his stamina will improve. However, you can’t reverse scarred lung tissue. So he was our longest admitted patient, but severe cases in general are a good 3-6 weeks.