Five medical workers at the Detroit Sinai-Grace Hospital have shed a light on the dire situation their workplaces have found themselves in.
Severely ill patients have been kept in hospital hallways due to the limited resources they currently have access to.
“We’ve had patients die in hallway beds because the nurse didn’t find they didn’t have a pulse until it was too late.
“Each nurse has so many patients that by the time they come to check on their next one, there is a chance that patient may not have a pulse anymore,” a physician revealed to CNN.
At least two people have passed away in hallways, the physician said.
Three medical workers at the hospital have spoken out about the lack of cardiac monitors.
“We have patients that we know are going to pass so we take them off a monitor and give [it] to someone else that needs [it],” an ER worker told CNN.
Another added:
“We do our best to be next to them when they pass.
“But oftentimes all of the nurses are busy with other patients.”
Last Sunday, members of the Sinai-Grace’s ER night staff voiced their disapproval of the circumstances by refusing to work and urged more workers to join them in their cause.
Brian Taylor, the Detroit Medical Center communications and media relations director, did not reveal much details concerning the care of patients.
“It’s important to understand that everyday emergency rooms all over the country face dynamic situational challenges and even more so now in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis,” he told CNN.
“Like many hospital systems, the demand to care for the ever-increasing number of patients is putting a strain on our resources and staff.
“Surge plans are in place at our hospital to handle the increase in patient volumes to ensure we provide the safest and most appropriate care for our patients,” he added.
Taylor revealed that a big reason for Sinai-Grace’s to be so overwhelmed is that there are “extremely high rates of underlying medical conditions such as hypertension and diabetes” in the hospital.
Two more medical workers told CNN that patients are transferred to a temporary cooling storage area when they pass away.
“We have to put people next to each other and on top of each other, because it’s been non-stop,” one of them said.
Data from John Hopkins University shows that Michigan is currently in third place in the US when it comes to coronavirus cases.
An emergency hospital technician shared with CNN that the hospital he works at sometimes feels like a “third world country in a war zone”.
New York is currently the state with most coronavirus cases with more than 170,500 infected and over 7,800 dead.
New Jersey has over 58,150 coronavirus-infected followed by Michigan with around 24,000.
The US as a whole currently has more than half a million confirmed cases.
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