In reply to Toebra :
Just throwing it out there, that video is basically a propaganda piece, made by a woman who is a known anti-vax mouthpiece on Fox News, has only held her license for a few years, and her "undercover video" absolutely screams "HIPAA violations" with the way it willfully shows medical record charts and audiotapes people without their consent.
InfoWars really loves her though (if these thumbnails don't tell you everything you need to know about the linked video, well...):
A number of employees at the facility in question have responded to her claims:
While it is true that some patients tested negative, those patients all had horrendously deranged inflammatory makers (with distributive shock on pressure) and chest x rays clearly demonstrating lung injury. In this case the responsible thing to do is to assume covid positive and give the available treatment. Speaking of which, all of these patients received an adjunctive anti inflammatory treatment consistent w CDC recs at the time so I’m not sure what her point regarding Plaquenil was.
This is because you’re likely dealing with a false Negative test because these patients were often unintentionally swabbed too superficially (i.e. didn’t get oropharynx because people testing don’t want to cause the patient discomfort and also limit their own exposure, which is understandable). This was a limitation of the test itself at the time. This also completely undermines the notion that these patients were inappropriately intubated for conditions like “anxiety”. There was clear evidence of
underlying organic disease processes and high flow O2 was often attempted prior to intubation when possible, but in addition to needing more respiratory support these patients also would develop encephalopathy and require intubation for airway protection.
She makes the mistake of comparing a limited experience w/ covid in Florida to a different population of patients (much sicker) in New York.
Each of her other arguments/points could be similarly refuted by anyone with first hand knowledge of the situation. You get the point.
This nurse may think she is helping in her own delusional way but effectively she is type-casting an entire community and hospital as inept, inadequate, and ignorant. I wonder if she would have made this video if she was working in the established hospitals across in Manhattan? I’ve worked shifts I’m both ICU’s during this crisis. While Elmhurst is a public hospital and as a result may lack some resources, I can tell you the medical decision making was consistent in both and outcomes were similar. These were simply sick patients. Inherent in her video is a bias and prejudice that is damaging in its own right.
But, here is Erin Marie… Firstly, Covid rule outs WERE homed with Covid positive patients at the beginning of this pandemic-why- because the hospital was 80% OVER capacity. Imagine-we had 152 patients on ventilators when I walked through that door April 11th. We still have original Covid patients in the ICU units-some that were intubated at the end of March. They are now successfully trached, out of bed to chair, and undergoing pt/ot as they should be. Truth-there are patients that have negative Covid tests-falsely-why because they had elevated inflammatory markers on admission. Huge cause for a false negative-clinically present with glass ground opacities in the lungs, and rapid onset of multi organ system failure. And, as you said-false negatives and false positives happen. In the case of my *** patient (Erin mentioned)-I can tell you more about that person than I can myself. Presented to the ED with shortness of breath and a cough. No underlying medical conditions. Now, take into consideration-this is the melting pot of the US-there are so many ethnicities and cultures here-healthcare is not free and they are underprivileged and don’t receive treatment when they should… was admitted to a Covid med surg floor ( tested positive) on a nasal canula, to venti mask to nonrebreather to eventually bipap. Was proning during this time. He was also receiving hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin. Guess what happened next-had a MI-prolonged QT. That’s what landed him on the ventilator with renal failure to follow. He had a dialysis catheter placed, an a-line, and a triple lumen central line. Why. Because those are needed tools in the ICU-that’s a critical care patient-Covid or not. I don’t know about you but I’m not infusing levophed, vasopressin, and neo through peripherals that need to be changed every 72 hours on someone with poor vascular access and terrible perfusion. A line for ABGS and blood draws to be able to wean or titrate the ventilator and replace electrolytes as needed, and review renal panels for preparation of HD. All of these lines and tubes and we still with help of an Air Force prone team were proning my patient!
Truth-Erin Marie is NOT a critical care nurse-she claims she is an ED nurse. She was taught how to inline suction, how to titrate drips, and how to open and insert the chamber into the epi syringe during a code(I’m pretty sure that must have been used in her ED career at some point). The night she videotaped and recorded my conversation and my patient was the night he passed. (Redacted for patient privacy)
Following the deaths of these three patients on that same night, CCU became a clean unit-there is no Covid or suspected Covid in the unit. Shoe covers are only worn in level 3 zones-not throughout the entire facility as she claims. What Erin doesn’t share is that the “dentist and ophthalmologist” working in the ICUs they have a defined role-they are the medical professionals that FaceTime family members at bedside. They are not treating! They are an extension of the nursing staff so we can provide more time caring for our patients and less time answering phone calls and talking to families…during this pandemic. What Erin doesn’t share is she was moved from night shift to dayshift on her own accord(it seems once she got what she wanted from her recordings) and shortly after terminated by Elmhurst and Krucial staffing for accusing a physician of murdering her patient.
We were once called heroes now we are murderers. We are getting death threats and are told not to wear our scrubs for safety when coming to work. I worked with COVID19 patients since day 1, got sick, went thru emotional turmoil along with physical exhaustion. I will never forget how much we sweat with our googles fogged up, had headaches and a sore throat with wearing the N95 for more than 12 hours running room to room as the saturation levels went down to the 40’s.
So many of us got sick and to have someone who came to make up some story and twist it is so wrong. This nurse deserves her license revoked. She puts the profession of nursing to a shame. She claims her private institution in Florida had no deaths related to COVID. According to her facebook she is from Tampa Florida which falls under Hillsborough county which had 81 deaths. The total population of Tampa, Fl is 392,890 whereas the total population in Queens, NY is 2.73 million.
This so called holistic anti-vax , anti-chemo RN from the ED who claims to have all crossed trained nurses when in fact she was being taught how to suction patients on the vent has convinced certain people that COVID-19 did not even exist and the solution to COVID is sunshine, sea water, hydroxychloroquine and vitamin C.
There is no cure for COVID-19 as of yet. We tried the plasma, hydroxychloroquine remdesimvir and more which did not improve some of these patients’ conditions. We were physically tired where I had worked 14 1/2 hour shifts but the emotional turmoil this brought upon us cannot even be expressed in words. We had to open up 160 ICU beds.
I can not even imagine how the lies of this person affected those who are already grieving with the loss of their family members. We held a candle light vigil because we wanted to say a few words and have closure because of everyone who passed. So these are nurses and doctors who do care. People like Erin Marie Olszewski have no shame and do not care for anyone but themselves.
