As frontline health care professionals, nurses are the true heroes who risk everything to care for patients. Especially during this time of the pandemic, the Covid-19 nurses are the skeleton crew without assistants. Here is the story of a nurse in Houston who risked her everyday life just to care for the Covid-19 patients.
Read this story from the LA Times.
After checking on one of her patients, Flor Treviño was about to duck through a zippered plastic door when a flurry of beeping monitors turned her around.“Get the crash cart!” shouted another nurse on the COVID-19 ward.
Treviño rushed into room 418, where nurses were pumping away on a man’s bare chest.“Let’s check for a pulse,” a medical student instructed. There was none. The 79-year-old rancher was bleeding internally.
A nurse stepped into the corridor to call his relatives in New Mexico.“The family wants us to continue — do whatever we can!” she yelled. Treviño grabbed three syringes of epinephrine and emptied them into the man’s IV to jump-start his heart. But nothing worked.“You want to call it?” the medical student asked the team, which agreed the battle was over. “He’s dead at 9:13.”
The room began to empty as quickly as it had filled. Treviño stayed to help the teary nurse who had been taking care of the man. Together, the two nurses disconnected the man from IVs and monitors, cleaned his skin with disposable wipes, and wrapped his head with a cotton pad.
Then they eased him into a white body bag. It was Day 264 at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston.
Read more of this here.
During this time of fear and stress, practicing nurses have worked long shifts. The physical and mental exhaustion, lack of knowledge, and in many cases, lack of skills to care for patients can lead to disciplinary action.
If you are a Nurse in Houston who faces any disciplinary issues before the Texas Board of Nursing, please contact Houston nurse attorney Yong J. An, call or text at 832 428 5679 or anlawfirm@gmail.com. Mr. An has represented over 100 nurses before the Texas Board of Nursing since 2006.