Early on in the COVID crisis, many hospital-based healthcare workers moved around to serve in COVID hotspots hurting for staff. They did so at scale and at will. Those were the good old days.
An NPR roundup of some illustrative anecdotes highlights the then-and-now character of the change.
“I was working six or seven days a week, but I felt very invigorated,” a Tennessee nurse recalls of the spring COVID crunch, which prompted her to work outside her home institution and also to launch a field hospital in New York City.
Fast-forward to the holiday season.
“The vast majority of our patients now in the intensive care unit are not coming in through our emergency department,” Matthew Semler, MD, a Vanderbilt University pulmonary specialist, tells NPR.
“They’re being sent to our hospital,” Semler explains, “because all of the hospitals between here and where they present to the emergency department are on diversion.”
This fall, unlike last spring, the major concern “won’t be ventilators or protective gear,” NPR notes. “In most cases, it will be the medical workforce. People power.”
The report includes input from Nashville Public Radio and Kaiser Health News.
Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.