Texas nurses blow the whistle on Covid-19 unit as ants crawl over corpses amid lack of PPE kits, oxygen tanks
HIDALGO COUNTY, TEXAS: A Texas hospital's nurses have described the pitiful condition of a makeshift Covid-19 unit where they claimed oxygen tanks are split between two patients while corpses are kept in non-air-conditioned rooms as ants crawl over them. According to reports, the unit about which the nurses have blown the whistle is at the Doctors Hospital Renaissance (DHR) in Hidalgo County, Edinburg, Texas. It was made earlier this year to treat coronavirus patients.
Texas is reportedly one of the worst affected states in the US with more than four thousand deaths. On Wednesday, July 22, alone, the state recorded over 100 deaths. And since morgues are out of capacity due to spike in death, the bodies are now kept in refrigerated trucks.
The nurses at DHR said lockdown in March and April was successful as it helped in stopping the spread of the deadly virus. However, since the lockdown has been ceased the cases have spiked rapidly. The appalling condition of the hospital was not directly shared by its nurses as they fear they will lose the job. It has been shared by another nurse who goes by the name Sarah and who does not work in the hospital. The information regarding the hospital was sent to Sarah from staff inside, The Daily Mail reported.
The claims made by the nurses stated that heavy, old-fashioned oxygen tanks are being split between two patients, which are not sufficient for any of them. They also alleged that their “backs and bodies” are not able to tolerate the weight of those tanks, which they have to constantly switch out while working at full speed. One staff member even claimed that a nurse was appointed to look after 117 patients and 17 ventilators by themselves. While others said they are not given PPE like gowns, which they claim are limited to one per day.
Another nurse accused the hospital of not allowing them to change the gown despite having feces on it. The whistleblowers also stated that the DHR hospital is not using its main facility for Covid-19 patients as they want to keep it clean for performing money-making lucrative procedures.
Other than these, staff members have also made another horrifying allegation against the hospital where they claimed once a coronavirus patient dies, they keep them in warm rooms with no air-conditioning. One nurse even claimed to see ants “crawling on their bodies and faces”, including in the patients' mouths. However, when they complained about it to the hospital authorities, they were told the ants were “coming from the patient”.
Some of the nurses who have blown the whistle were reportedly hired by the hospital through Krucial, a staffing company. The company has apparently told the nurses that if they spoke to media about the horrifying situation, they will be terminated from their job.
Meanwhile, a report from The New York Times has stated that though the hospital has an overwhelming number of patients, there was no mention of the pathetic condition as described by the nurses. Speaking of keeping free the main facility from coronavirus patients, Dr Adolfo Kaplan, a critical care physician who works with Dr. Brown at DHR Health said: “We knew that this was a time bomb because the percentage of obesity, hypertension, diabetes is so high. We knew that if the hospital was hit, it was going to be a disaster, and that’s what we are living through.”