[AMA] COVID ICU Doctor in Sydney [closed]

Lshatter on 26/08/2021 - 09:30
Last edited 28/08/2021 - 04:49

Hey everyone, long time lurker here.

I'm a junior doctor in a COVID ICU of one of Sydney's tertiary hospitals.
Wrote this post to hopefully shed some light on what it's like inside the unit, since rarely does the general public have a chance to see or get a feel for what goes on inside the unit.
COVID ICUs are very strictly regulated units - most hospital staff are forbidden to enter (and wouldn't want to be there anyway)

I should probably describe what it's like to be a patient inside COVID ICU.
- there probably aren't good windows, so you don't have much access to natural light and don't know if it's day or night
- we give you dexamethasone which helps reduce the inflammation in your lungs, but it gives you insomnia
- your family cannot visit you at all
- you can't recognise anyone who is coming into your room because of all the PPE we have on
- the usual reason for ICU admissions is oxygen support which can range from uncomfortable (having large volumes of oxygen jetted up your nose - high flow nasal prongs), very very uncomfortable (having pressurised oxygen pushed into you via a tight mask - it feels like trying to breath with your head outside the window of a moving car), or completely intubated.

If there's one thing I want to say, it's please get vaccinated! I have not looked after a single fully vaccinated patient.
If you're in Sydney and eligible for Pfizer and AZ but have to wait 2 weeks for Pfizer, I wouldn't wait.

Some questions I can answer, some questions I can't
I'm studying at the same time as this, so sometimes can take some time to answer, sorry!
Opinions here are my own

Addit - I am closing this AMA, thank you for your questions. There's a number of questions that keep being recycled, which I can't answer eg. Opinion on novel drugs and I am being DM'd for specific health advice. I cannot provide that information to you responsibly on the internet, I am sorry. Please ask your local doctor/attend ED if especially concerned.

Introduce Yourself

closed Comments

  • aussieprepper on 28/08/2021 - 06:56

    With the vaccine not working not great longer term in some places, whats next? are we locked up forever?

    Half of Covid hospital cases fully vaccinated
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/half-of-covid-hospital-ca…

    Yes i understand how it works the amount of vaccinated people is a bigger group so less are in hospital overall but it still has the ability to overload a medical system if we just start to open up.

    Interesting read from British medical journal. "the recent reports from Israel’s Ministry of Health caught my eye. In early July, they reported that efficacy against infection and symptomatic disease “fell to 64%.” By late July it had fallen to 39% where Delta is the dominant strain. This is very low. For context, the FDA’s expectation is of “at least 50%” efficacy for any approvable vaccine".
    https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/08/23/does-the-fda-think-thes…

    No one seems to be asking the question of whats next.

    • screensaver on 28/08/2021 - 07:51

      I think Novavax is whats next, cant wait

  • CheetoJesus on 28/08/2021 - 10:24

    The vax don’t work look at Israel highest double jabbed rate in the world https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/grim-warning-israel-…

    And sure I’d love to come to your ICU ward and see an actual real patient dying of covid so I can see for myself what it says on their official paperwork, because we have a population of over 25M and to date only 991 apparent covid deaths but as we all know you’re counted as a covid death if you died from another issue but died “with” covid so those numbers don’t even tell the full story. More people dying from suicide right now, there’s mass job losses, domestic violence, neighbour hating neighbour all in the name of this virus and “vaccine” that isn’t even a vaccine and literally does nothing of note and “if” you were to have an adverse reaction there’s no help for you, no one to hold to account like this guy https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/cha… “We’re all in this together” is the biggest load of bs I’ve ever heard and the only ones living in fear and happy to strip away our freedoms are the fully vaxxed that I’ve noticed trying to pressure everyone else to make them selves feel better about taking part in the experiment,

    I personally won’t be taking the covid flu shot, call me what you want I really don’t care, I was actually vaxxed with real vaccines as a child for chickenpox and everything else and when a better alternative arrives or we have actual long term results showing the effects of current flu shot I’ll be more interested, but so far even with all these so called vaxxers we’re still locked down, nothings changing if it actually worked do you think we’d still be here?

  • CheetoJesus on 28/08/2021 - 10:43
    -2

    Here’s a real doctor with a PHD in Cellular and Molecular biology

    This is just from last week in US, not some tin foil hat conspiracy, real facts and data proving the vaccines don’t work as intended, if you don’t believe this because they’re not a Sydney Morning Herald, Channel 7,10,9 “expert” then there’s just no help for you and I don’t even feel sorry for you.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&fbclid=IwAR3qcbNOF…

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