FROM an ICU Nurse at UNMC (University of Nebraska Med Center)
Sara Jean Nelson
May 8 at 9:01 AM

Hey everyone. It’s me, your friendly COVID ICU nurse. I’m lying in bed reading about Douglas County’s rates of positive COVID results and how they are going up, and how 21 patients are currently on ventilators, but don’t worry because we have 244 ventilators in the county.

I’m here to let you know that it doesn’t matter how many ventilators we have if we are SHORT ICU NURSES. Nebraska has under paid nurses for as long as I’ve been a nurse (14 years) so we have been in a NURSING SHORTAGE for YEARS. It takes a specially trained ICU nurse to care for critically ill patients and you can’t be trained overnight. There’s no 30 minute master’s class for this.

So at Nebraska Medicine we are implementing micro teams where ICU nurses oversee the care of more critically ill patients with the help of extender nurses. I just finished up two shifts working under this new model and I’ve never been more overwhelmed. I walked 11 miles total in these two days, peed 4 times total during these two shifts, drank 5 cups of water total during these two shifts, and only cried once. All so that I could walk away knowing that I did the best I could for these patients that are under my care.

SO TELL ME AGAIN WHY YOU CAN’T WEAR A FUCKING MASK.