Hi, I'm Maria O'Toole and I'm a Nurse Tutor in St Vincent's University Hospital and I was
recently re-deployed to the Intensive Care Unit for Covid-19 Pandemic.
You know I wanted to be part of the fight against the Covid-19 and to use my
skills as much as possible to help. The things that you go through with patients
with staff a lot of the stuff never leaves you and you see things and
experience things that that really stay with you and they change your
perspective on life. I mean if you're having a bad day or a bad time of your
life and you go and look after someone who's really struggling it really
changes your perspective on everything and it just makes me very
grateful for what you do have and I love that, it's a job that I feel, I feel it
works with my values, do you know what I mean, I feel it works with what I feel is
important in life and I love that I love that about it yeah.
So in our house there's myself there is my husband Peter he's a nurse he's also
a healthcare professional on the frontline of the Covid-19 and we have
our two sons, James who is five and Ciaran who is three and our cat Zippy. Yeah when I
first heard of Covid-19, I suppose I began to feel like I need to prepare
somehow. I suppose that's always kind of been the way I cope with anything if
there's any kind of like, maybe it's the Intensive Care nurse than me I don't
know where I need to prepare okay so if this does come what am I going to do I
do get very logical and planning ahead so and I tend to generally prepare for
the worst and then hope for the best. So at the moment we're very lucky that
we've been able to work opposite shifts so we haven't needed any child care
which has been really we've been very lucky with that really so I suppose we
had to make a plan, we have two small children that if we became infected we
it would be most likely that we would both become infected and we would need
someone to take care of the kids and I suppose trying to weight it up because
obviously Peters family, most of them are healthcare professionals as well and
the same with my own family so trying to get someone who would
actually be free and trying to make that plan so we had settled on my sister who
would come over and help out with the kids
depending on how sick we would get, now thank God we haven't we haven't
become sick and but I would still have those plans in place just in case. We try
and mind each other a little bit because we are both, we have been running on
adrenaline for the last few weeks so we do have to mind each other a little bit and
we are conscious of making sure each other are okay and I think that really
helps that we're both nurses that we understand you know just why you're
tired or what you've been through or what you've been seeing that definitely makes
it easier. So the PPE is either a long-sleeve gown or the hazmat suit and
putting on a surgical hair net and putting on a mask checking for the sea and putting
on goggles and if there is a patient that doesn't, if there's a lot of aerosol
generating procedures with a specific patient I'm looking after I'll
also wear a visor so I'm fairly well covered up going in. So in one shift you
generally would change your PPE about three or four times, it's not the most
comfortable to wear because it is quite restrictive on your face and also it really
does kind of occlude your vision a little bit so you find yourself if
you're looking at the you know you're trying to look at the ECG rhythm with them you
know we are having to look a little bit longer even the sounds are kind of
distorted a bit with all the headgear and after a while if you're wearing it
for a couple of hours you do start to sweat and you're breathing in your own
you know your carbon dioxide and so by the time your break is coming up you
really want to take it off you do get a little bit agitated with it on but at
the same time I'm really grateful to have it on and to be able to protect
myself and the patients as well. So we've set up a Skype service so that the
family can see the patients usually we would have much more time with family in
terms of preparing them to see the patient and with all the tubes and all
the equipment and the monitors so it is a bit alarming for them but at the same
time I'm so glad we have Skype because it has been really nice to
witness the family and if the patient's a bit more awake and they're
able to talk or communicate it's been really lovely and you can just see the
relief of the family to be able to see the patient and you know willing them on
and there's a really lovely love about it like it's just it's really heartening
to see that as well and you'd really feel for the families because
it's tough, it's really tough not being able to visit at this time. I think
actually what I really enjoy is the teamwork
I think there's been really good, really good morale despite all the stress and
staff are very stressed at the moment but there has been a really good feeling
of a team effort everyone working together everyone looking out for each
other and then the other side of us I've actually loved working with the patients
with the you know listening and talking to the family and just being part of it
as much as possible and we've had some really good cases that's really lifted
morale in the Unit and I'm so grateful actually that the patients have all
received as much care as they could in the ICU and we haven't received that
surge because that's been an underlying stress for all of the staff working on
the front line is that, that potential surge that could come and you know that
patients will suffer if that happens so I'm really grateful that it's
worked so well for us at the moment. Yeah. I can truly understand people being
frustrated you know I really can it's hard being restricted not being able to
do their normal things and not being able to make plans that can be very
difficult and I think if you're sitting in your own little box in your own
little area and you're not seeing any you know any patients hooked up to a
ventilator or on dialysis and all the infusions running in you when you're not
seeing that it's not really real and you can't, it's really just numbers on a page
that's coming out every evening unless it's directly affecting you so I can
understand the frustration but I hope that people feel that I suppose they've
contributed because they really have as a group and I'm so I'm really amazed
actually at the community effort and the level of solidarity in general that the
public have been so supportive of trying to flatten the curve and keeping within
their own distance just you know their own and spaces it's made such a difference
and I think perspective, I think for most people I think they realise probably
what's important to them and also I suppose even the luxury of freedom that
you take for granted all the time that you can go and you know go to Glendalough
or go up the Sugarloaf or you know those things you take for granted that you can
go and plan a trip over to France things like that and family and friends and
connection is so important and I think that probably people are realising
probably what's most important, I hope they are. I hope they are.