‘Everyone wear a mask and don’t take it off’.
Hospital staff will be passing coronavirus to one another and this is a greater concern than the patient to staff spread.
I was fortunate to speak with a senior ICU nurse from Wuhan Union Hospital – Ms Hu – she’s kindly offered to to keep in touch and help us learn.
Take home message:
From the time of arrival of the first COVID patient in the hospital we spread the coronavirus amongst one another.
She was explicitly greatly concerned about the spread of coronavirus from one staff member to another much more so than spreading it from patient to staff member.
The way she said this must be combatted is to
– stop everything we possibly can within our hospitals
– everyone in the hospital must wear a mask at all times
With regards to masks they could wear an
– N95 for up to 8 hours
– surgical masks over one another for up to 4 hours
For those staff looking after patients known or suspected of having coronavirus all staff should weaR
– Full hooded suit
– N95 mask
– Goggles
– Tape to seal any holes
This whole set up is then (fit) breath tested – breath in to see that the everything sucks in
If aerosolizing procedures are performed then also wear a face shield.
They do not have access to PAPR.
All staff are to temperature tested every day .
It appeared that people needed to be tested twice prior to receive a negative diagnosis – it was difficult to get more exact information on this – I will ask again.
My overall impression was that our testing regime is much inferior.
Staff caring for known coronavirus patients were not allowed home – they went to a hotel at the end of their shift and were isolated. They worked in 2 or 3 week shifts, yet when they had a break they were still not allowed to go home until they had isolated for 14 days.
Ms Hu didn’t go home for 2 months.