COVID-19 through the eyes of a health-care provider

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Back to the pandemic, earlier we spoke to Amanda Foster. She’s a local nurse who worked in New York City at the start of the pandemic and just returned to the Valley from Texas, where she was also treating COVID-19 patients. We asked her to share her experiences and what she’s seeing out there.

“We’re not seeing a decrease. We’re seeing definitely an increase in numbers, we’re seeing sicker people come in through the emergency rooms. They are waiting longer at home to come in. And so, that means they’re needing more intensive care,” said Foster.

Symptoms are increasingly getting worse and patients are needing to be immediately intubated as soon as they come into the hospital.

Foster said they have, “to roll people, lay them on their stomachs to help them breathe better, particularly when they are intubated, we find that works better for raising oxygenation levels.”

A big difference Foster is seeing since the pandemic began is an increase in young patients that are not recovering as well.

Foster reflected on her time in New York during the start of the pandemic, “It was scary, not knowing what we were walking into as healthcare providers, not knowing a lot about the virus that made it a very unique situation.”

And once she worked in Texas she said, “Texas was also scary in the fact that we were seeing such high numbers. We now know a little bit more but also know what we’re more at risk for as well as healthcare providers.”

Now being in Arizona, “we are trending much like Texas in that our ICU’S are filling up, there aren’t enough nurses to take care of patients. And so, we are lining up to have a very similar situation, much like Texas,” said Foster.

Foster has seen a lot but she mentions the hardest part of all of this is, “watching my peers struggle the same way I struggle, watching patients suffer…And also, watching our society struggle with their own self responsibility in helping mitigate the disease spread.”

“I just want people to wear masks and stay safe and socially distance and wait until we can get this vaccine rolled out and the vaccines not going to be 100%, either. So, this isn’t going back to the way we were in 2019, it’s how do we move forward into our new future,” said Foster.

Amanda Foster, Nurse

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