A Rant From A Registered Nurse

The following rant was written by my wife who is an RN

I can't believe the things that I'm seeing about New Orleans. It's like something out of a science fiction movie or a Stephen King novel.

I have seen so many things that have broken my heart over the last few days but nothing has touched me like the story of the doctors,nurses
and other medical staff at Charity Hospital. For those who aren't familiar with it, Charity is the hospital where most of the city's poor are taken.

It's not a good place to be in the best of conditions and now it's even worse. I've heard plenty of stories about it from doctors I've known who did residencies there and they said that if you could survive working there you could pretty much work anywhere in the
world.

When I first heard about the hurricane heading for New Orleans I said "Charity will be the last place evacuated" and I was right.

Other hospitals in the city had patients evacuated earlier but as of today there were still 200 patients in Charity. Several of these were ICU patients, many of them ventilator dependent. There is no power and no gas to run the generator. Therefore each of these patients is being manually breathed with a device called an Ambu bag which is being held by a nurse,doctor or respiratory therapist.

I've bagged patients before..it's hard work and after about fifteen minutes you feel as if your arm will fall off. These people have been doing it for days now.

There have already been deaths at Charity..bodies are stacked in the
stairwells because the morgue is flooded and there is no place to put them. Yesterday medical staff was shot at by snipers as they tried to
get patients out..two nurses were hit.

Two patients that actually got out died after being taken across the street on a boat, then
transported up eight flights of stairs to a helipad. These were ventilated patients being bagged by a staff member.

These employees have had very little water, only crackers to eat and no sleep in days. They're using porta potties at the end of hallways,
making rounds by flashlight and relying on their common sense to take care of patients. Two nurses were telling the story about how they had
to take turns starting IVs on one another in order to get hydrated because the drinking water wasn't safe.

The head of infectious disease at Charity said that there have been nurses coming down with diarrhea and stomach pains from unsanitary conditions. This will only get worse. I read earlier tonight that they hope to have everyone out of Charity by in the morning. They've been saying that for days. Staff from the other hospitals in the city were evacuated today. The brave men and women at Charity are still there...taking care of their patients.

I realize that there are times when I complain about my job...when I wish my working conditions were better...but today I stopped for a minute and realized how lucky I was compared to those men and women. I had the equipment I needed, I got a lunch break, my patient was monitored and kept dry and clean.

The patients at Charity were lucky to be alive. I have so much respect for the staff there. They're working under conditions that I can only begin to imagine. Some may say..why did they go in when they knew that there was a disaster in the making?

It's simple really...it's what we do. I would have done the same thing. If I were on staff at Charity Hospital I'd be right in the thick of it. I wouldn't leave my patients, I couldn't. I signed on for that when I took the Nightingale pledge on graduation night. I'd be there until the bitter end. It's part of the job.

The thing that bothers me is that the medical staff won't get any credit for what they've done. You'll hear things about the military,
the law enforcement and firemen but what about the nurse that stood at a bedside for hours bagging a patient? What about the doctor who
literally stood in blood and water to take care of a dying patient?

You won't see them...those won't be talked about.Bush will have his photo ops..he'll give warm fuzzies,but did he visit Charity Hospital?! No he didn't. People at work today said: "Well he went down there. Good for him." My reply? "When I see photos of George W. Bush standing in the ICU at Charity ankle deep in shit and bloodbagging a patient..then I'll respect him."

So today I've realized something important. I'm proud to be a nurse..I'm proud to be an unsung hero. To the staff at Charity Hospital..I salute you.