Ottawa ICU nurse detailing experience during pandemic’s ‘preventable’ third wave
Posted Apr 28, 2021 03:52:00 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It's been a long year, and like many Ottawa residents, ICU nurse Alicia Robblee is tired.
The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations and intensive care admissions remain high across the province and in the city, and Robblee says tells CityNews' The Rob Snow Show, there's no sign of things slowing down.
“The patients that are being transferred into our ICU's from out of town and other areas aren't even being counted in those [Ottawa Public Health (OPH)] numbers, so I know that the number of COVID patients in ICU's in the city is much higher.”
Robblee explains, patients admitted into intensive care with COVID-19 require a significant amount of medical attention, including one-on-one care from a nurse. However, she says nurses are having to take on two patients at a time, and fears that they will have to care for more as the number of admissions increases.
The nurse adds, people are struggling after the initial sign of relief at the beginning of the provincial vaccination rollout.
“So now to be facing this, it's difficult,” Robblee says. “I personally feel like this was probably preventable… the third wave.”
The age of those being admitted into the ICU is much lower than in earlier stages of the pandemic and often times patients had not ever had any significant underlying issues.
These times are unlike any Robblee has seen in nine years as an intensive care nurse at the Ottawa Hospital's Civic Campus.
Listen to ICU nurse Alicia Robblee's appearance on CityNews' The Rob Snow Show:
