RN
How unprepared my hospital was and is. I am interested in how other operating rooms and PACUs around the country are recovering patients. As a Florida PACU RN, the hospital I am working in is seriously putting patients and staff at risk. We are told that patients can not have elective surgery unless they have a Covid test. However, they do not have to have the RESULTS of the Covid test. If they do not have results (sometimes even if never tested) the PACU RN is required to gown up, N95 and all, and recover the patient in the OR. This means no access to all of our medications, supplies etc. This requires an extra PACU RN "runner". The OR environment is not an ideal or safe place to recover a patient due to the wires, one oxygen hook up that does not reach the bed properly, blood and other bodily fluids all over the floor, the numerous wires and other tripping hazards. All this makes it extremely difficult to get to the patient, and causes a sloppy hurried recovery experience. We even have one nurse out on disability who fell in the OR. Believe it or not the first few weeks we were forced to do this, the OR RN (who we demanded stay with us) and scrub were NOT wearing PPE. Am I alone in this nightmare or are others doing the same? One day, of our 42 cases, 19 had to be recovered in the OR. Is this even legal?
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