Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we're going to open up the phones for healthcare workers on the front lines, in the greater New York area or wherever you are, help us report on the state of the healthcare system here in the second wave of the pandemic healthcare workers. The floor is yours at 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, so many questions you could answer.

If you work at a hospital, do you have enough staff? Do you have enough PPE with Coronavirus cases at an all-time high, in many parts of the country? What are your notes from the field? If you're listening in a place that's really being overwhelmed right now, how are you feeling heading into the winter? No matter what kind of hospital or your other healthcare facility you work at, what are you bracing for? What have we learned from the spring that will help patients or help you give us a call? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280.

Healthcare workers on the front lines with respect to coronavirus. The floor is yours now help us report, help everybody understand this story and not be too complacent about what it's doing to healthcare workers yet again. 646-435-7280. The first confirmed COVID cases in the US, of course, were back in late February, and months after a devastating spring cases are ballooning again.

Nurses, doctors, care providers in your view is the healthcare system better equipped today than it was back in March and April? How has care changed? Help us report that part of the story. Are you afraid as people were back in the spring in this area of running out of beds of running out of ventilators, running out of PPEs, running out of other things, that was the original reason for a lot of the stay at home orders?

To flatten the curve, as they said, meaning don't let everybody, who's going to get it to the point of needing hospitalization get it all at once. The hospitals won't be overwhelmed. The patients who have to go to the hospitals will have beds and the necessary equipment and also, so the healthcare workers don't get overwhelmed, 646-435-7280. In the New York area, listeners as various kinds of closures are taking place again and being considered, is the hospitalization rate now so much less of a concern that you're not worried about your hospital or your other health care facility at the moment? Or should we be more concerned than maybe the media is reflecting so far on this score? 646-435-7280.

Healthcare workers on the front lines help us report on this new coronavirus wave in our area or from anywhere you are in the country. I know that most of our listeners are in the greater New York area. The El Paso area is being so hard hit, hospitals being overwhelmed. We've heard about North Dakota places, call-in from anywhere, and tell your stories and people in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, what about here? 646-435-7280, healthcare workers, 646-435-7280. We'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC with open phones for healthcare workers. How's it going at your hospital or wherever you work? This early-stage, it seems like the second wave of the pandemic in our area or elsewhere. Jane in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC. Hi, Jane.

Jane: Hi, my hospital and I don't want to say is like most of the hospitals across the city and that they don't really offer testing for the staff. That seems a little confusing. I believe they do it in Europe.

Brian: Is there a rationale that they give for that?

Jane: I don't know, but we certainly do test for people coming in for same-day surgeries or for certain hospitalizations very quickly they test maybe it's money, but I think if you want to safeguard stuff in hospitals, especially maybe a surgeon who's going to go in and do surgery. Shouldn't they be safeguarding them as well as the patient?

Brian: Pretty interesting. Did you hear that in North Dakota with the spike, their hospitals are reaching the point where frontline workers who are sick, that is who tests positive, as long as they don't have symptoms are being asked to continue to work in the hospital because the staff shortages are so great?

Jane: I don't think that that's new. I think that exists in other States.

Brian: Yes. It's been in the news for being new there.

Jane: That was something that--

Brian: That was something that happened in the spring here?

Jane: Absolutely.

Brian: Hopefully, we won't be going back to that. Jane, thank you so much. I wonder if other healthcare workers at whatever facility and Jane, understandably didn't want to shout out the name of her hospital on the air, but what about others of you who work at hospitals? Is there a protocol for you getting tested on a regular basis to protect yourself and others you come in contact with in the course of your work? Chris, Astoria you're on WNYC. Hi Chris.

Chris: Hey, Brian how are you doing? It's good to just be on the air and it's good to talk to you.

Brian: Glad you are on.

Chris: Thanks. I just want to say I work at a health and hospital corporation working the women and children division. One thing that we have is these rapid tests, which we've had and basically, every mother who comes in, who's going to give birth, they have the rapid test taken, we get the results in an hour or two, but recently we've started running out of those rapid tests so we have a longer test now, sometimes they don't report in a whole day.

Basically, if a mother comes in and she has to be separate separated from the other mothers who are knowns to not have COVID and the mothers who are not sure they're called PUIs, People Under Investigation. That's how the hospital calls it. These mothers going to have to be separated and that puts a strain on the staff and because you need staff to go to the other side of the unit basically, it's a whole separate unit PUIs and is confirmed or not confirmed.

Then the babies, if they're born, they then have to be separate there-- The baby had then become PUIs and they have to be separated from the other babies so that puts a strain on the neonatal ICU. That's just something that I think is going to continue in the coming weeks because of the influx of cases I think that we're going to get. A lot more moms are going to be coming in.

We're not going to know if they have COVID or not. It's going to take longer for the results to come in, it's going to put a strain on staff for the postpartum nurses, as well as the delivery nurses, as well as the NICU nurses or the neonatal ICU nurses. Also, I'm in frequent contact with a friend in the pediatrics ER, I just wanted to say that he's noticed an uptick in cases of children coming in of having COVID, but they're not being hospitalized as much, so they're not coming in as sick and then to your question--

Brian: I just want to underline what I think is the main point of the horrific story you're telling about how pregnant women are having to be separated from other pregnant women in many cases because their status can't be determined until the regular PCR test comes back in four hours or so. The bottom line here is there aren't enough rapid tests to go around, even at health and hospitals, corporations hospitals in New York City.

Chris: Yes, definitely. Before this second wave, I really just think it's a bigger wave than the first one, but before that we had rapid tests and again, as we said, that takes an hour or two, so that's really convenient. One good thing though is that mothers should come in and go to go to the prenatal care, those clinics do test and we're able to use those results for five days.

If a mother goes to get prenatal care, they do a test I think at the facility, then she comes in three or four days later, she's in labor. We have that test and we can use it for five days, but you never know a lot of times there'll be no mother's downstairs. You'd go to check an hour later, there's six mother’s downstairs in various degrees of labor and now you have results that are going to take maybe a day or two and those women are going to give birth to babies and now you have six babies that have to be separated. It creates a strain on the staff for sure.

Brian: It's a question that maybe I'll get to ask the mayor since this is about the public hospitals on Friday, ramping-up the supply of rapid tests. What's the city doing about it and, and what is doable? Chris, thank you for reporting that, that's really useful information even if troubling. Here's Phil calling from Connecticut. He says he works for New York City 911. Phil, thank you for your service and thank you for calling in.

Phil: Hey, Brian. Thanks for having me. Always a great show. I'm just wanted to chime in from a prehospital perspective that sees often we're who are quiet in the response, but I just wanted to chime in on your question about the PCR testing for healthcare workers. I know in 911 in prehospital [unintelligible 00:10:58] there is no testing for us, there's no mandatory testing. There's no random testing, there hasn't been from day one back in the spring, it was basically at our discretion. If you want to get tested, you go seek it out, you go get tested and that still remains to be the case, unfortunately.

Brian: Now, when you say you work for 911, does that mean you're working at a phone bank or are you going out on calls?

Phil: I'm a paramedic so I go out on calls.

Brain: You're a paramedic.

Phil: I'm a paramedic. I'm sorry. Yes, I should've made that clear. Brian, I've been a paramedic for well over 25 years, mostly Manhattan and the Bronx early in my career.

Brian: You're really out there on the front lines and what are you seeing compared to the spring as the cases? We got calls from people in your field early on seeing what was starting to go on in the city before some of the official stats caught up. Are you seeing anything like that now or do you think whatever spikes we're having are not resulting in as much demand for paramedic services?

Phil: Currently, to be honest with you, Brian, I have not seen a COVID case in probably months that I know of unless they were asymptomatic that they call for something else. I know from talking to the emergency room doctors and nurses, they're seeing a little bit more of mid-level not terribly sick like in the spring yet, at least as far as prehospital, our call volume is back to pre-COVID times.

The cold types are back to pre-COVID times. People have definitely lost the fear of going to the hospitals for the time being anyway, but we are not seeing it as people were anticipating it. As we all know that we received spikes in infection and the spread is increasing, two to four weeks, we start seeing the hospitalization and symptomatic those that succumb to it.

Brian: The cases now and then we may be seeing the hospitalizations later. Phil, I got to run and take a break and get some other callers on. Thank you. Be safe out there. Please call us again. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. More of your calls healthcare workers right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC and health care workers the floor is still yours. Help us report on the state of the second wave of the pandemic in our area at your hospital or other healthcare facility, 646-435-7280. Do you have enough staff? Do you have enough PPE? What is similar to or different from the early spring or the late winter? 646-435-7280. Alyssa, in Bayport on the Island. You're on WNYC. Hi, Alyssa.

Alyssa: Hi, good morning, Brian. How are you? Thanks for taking my call.

Brian: What are you seeing out there? What do you do?

Alyssa: I'm an emergency department nurse in a small community hospital on Long Island, we are starting to see a little bit of an uptick in cases. Some of them are reporting that they've had family come and visit them from out of state some of them knowing that they're COVID positive, but deciding that it's okay if they just see their immediate family, and then some of those family members are coming in symptomatic and testing positive.

Brian: What about visitation? I was reading about one hospital out west that recently just barred all visitors because they're having a spike in COVID hospitalizations there. What's the policy and what do you think it should be?

Alyssa: In our emergency department, we don't allow any visitors unless the patient is unable to advocate for themselves, either because they have an altered mental status or because they're near end of life, but no one else was allowed to visit up on the units. They're allowed visitation for, I think, 15 minutes at a time, one person at a time between certain hours. I think that's fair because it's just so hard for family to deal with their family being hospitalized and not being able to be involved in advocating for them. I understand that, but in the emergency department, especially with our volume in this time of year we really need to limit the number of people that might be exposed.

Brian: You and your colleagues are advocating for more closures rather than fewer as the debate goes on?

Alyssa: Our closures in terms of in the hospital or just in the community?

Brian: Indoor dining and things like that where people might be spreading it.

Alyssa: No, I don't think that we feel that we need those kinds of closures because honestly, since people have been allowed to feel a little bit like the returning to normal life in general, people's morale is better and it's been helpful as long as people can do it responsibly.

Brian: Alyssa, thank you very much. I said, healthcare workers. I didn't specify healthcare workers who serve humans. We are happy to take a call from Azi in Brooklyn, who I think is a veterinarian. Is that right as Azi.

Azi: Hi, Brian. Yes, I am.

Brian: Thank you so much for calling in. Are pets getting COVID-19.

Azi: I just like to say, how does that nearing world has been this entire time with COVID? in the beginning, we were very low on PPE. Thank God PPE is not an issue anymore, but there haven't been consistent regulations about testing, about quarantining, or even about seeing clients. Some clinics are still seeing clients face-to-face in tiny little consult rooms, while others are being really great about doing curbside. That has actually been an issue for me and for a lot of my colleagues. We've lost a lot of our workforce and the demand for veterinarians is very high right now.

Brian: Wow. Is this something that the profession can establish standards for itself? For example, when I went to the dentist a few months ago and hadn't thought about doing that in a pandemic until I needed to do it, but then I read up on it and I saw that the American Dental Association had established a lot of protocols for dentist practices. Is there something like that in the veterinarian’s association?

Azi: The ADMA has recommendations. As far as I am aware, there is no consistent requirement or regulation. Part of my concern is being in a confined space in a high volume practice, for instance, maybe 50 people in a day. I've been really advocating for myself. I know some of my colleagues in similar positions have been advocating about not doing consultations that way and having people drop off and talk on the phone. It's just inconsistent. It's a risk that we're taking and I do have colleagues who unfortunately have gotten sick and have died.

Brian: Wow. Azi, thank you for bringing that to the public's attention. Carol, a home health aid in Harlem. You're on WNYC. Carol, we've got about 30 seconds in the show. You're going to get our last word today. Hi there.

Carol: Hi. I wish that the mayor would address home healthcare agencies and say something about sending home healthcare aides into homes to clients that have other family members in the home. I took care of a client who has family nurses in the home, and one of the family members had COVID and I didn't know.

Brian: What should the standard be in your opinion?

Carol: I think somebody needs to go in and check first before we go there.

Brian: People should be tested before that contact which could put you or other home healthcare workers at risk. A very good point to end on. Thank you for your call. Thanks to all of you healthcare workers. There isn't the seven o'clock noise-making session anymore, but I hope people always remember what you had to do earlier this year and what you're doing right now.

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