By Natalie Moore
- What is herd immunity doing (or not doing) for you?
- What are Americans doing almost as much as paying taxes?
- Fever, aches, paralysis – Oh, my!
Dear reader,
Picture it.
Every staff member in the emergency room is covered head to toe in masks, gowns and gloves.
Patients spread about the ER bays — the worst cases rushed to isolation rooms.
Families, particularly those with children, told to leave for their own protection.
Medications and vaccines stockpiled in nurses stations so quickly pharmacy can’t fill the orders.
Instantly, emails fly out to all of the floors.
Administrators, VPs, infection control specialists, and department managers frantically making emergency census plans, hiring more part-time staff.
Frantically adding employees to on-call lists — preparing for the certain onslaught of sick patients and inevitable nursing staff absences.
What kind of outbreak could cause such madness?
Ebola?
Measles?
The plague?!
Nope.
As a mental health triage screener, this is the scene I observed each year since the first case of influenza rolled into the ER.
Managers instructed (bullied)…
