Goya Dmytryshchak
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A Western Health worker on the COVID-19 frontline has spoken of colleagues’ fears of returning to a situation like last year and pleaded with people to get vaccinated.
Kylie Fisher said Western Health, which operates hospitals at Sunshine, Footscray, Williamstown and Sunbury, had more than 400 patients hospitalised with the coronavirus in 2020.
“I’m privileged to be able to work with a group of nurses called the critical care outreach team, the ICU liaison nurses at Western Health,” Ms Fisher said.
“Last year they helped prevent hundreds of admissions to our intensive care units by acting as an extension of the ICUs.
“They helped support our ward nurses to support our patients and our communities.
“They would often come to me overwhelmed, sometimes in tears.
“They were worried. They would come to work worried.
“They were worried about their colleagues.
“They were worried about how they would support their colleagues on the wards, looking after overwhelming numbers of acutely unwell patients – patients that we usually don’t see admitted to the wards.”
Ms Fisher said staff were worried about their families when not at work.
“They would go home after 12-hour shifts, long shifts,” she said.
“They would have showers before they would leave work.
“They’d drive home, get out of their cars, get changed out of their scrubs in their garages, have a shower again, before they would go in and speak [to] or hug their families and their loved ones.
“I saw tears. I saw exhaustion. I saw nurses consoling nurses.
“I saw blood across the ridges of their noses and their ears from wearing PPE for 12 hours at a time.
“Long shifts on their feet.
“Kilometres and kilometres of k’s they’d clock up responding to emergency calls and calls for assistance on the ward.”
She said staff would come to her and say the situation was like nothing they’d ever seen.
“These patients are young, they’re fit … they’re well and then the next minute we’re taking them to ICU,” Ms Fisher said.
“… As their manager, I’m worried I’m going to have to ask them to stand up and do it again – and they will.
“These are senior ICU nurses who have seen it all before, they’ve done it all before, and I have to probably have to ask them to do it all again.
“They will but they shouldn’t have to.
“So, I’m asking – we’re lucky, we’ve got science, we’ve got a vaccine – please, if you haven’t already, get yourself vaccinated.
“Make that appointment.
“Keep yourselves safe, keep your family and your loved ones safe, keep the community safe.”
