Marshfield Clinic Chief Medical Officer: "The Patient Tried to Crawl Out of Bed Due to Air Hunger"

Tuesday, December 8th, 2020 -- 11:04 AM

-The nation and state continues to see an increase in coronavirus cases and deaths.

Clark County is no different.  For the beginning of this week, we’ll have a series of stories on the impact Clark County is seeing from the coronavirus from various local professionals and leaders.  The Marshfield Clinic is sharing videos from some of their staff working on the front lines during the coronavirus pandemic.  Dr. Melms, Chief Medical Officer, shared a heart breaking experience regarding a COVID patient.

Dr. Melms:  “I’m going to share something with you and I don’t do this lightly.  In fact, it shook me up when I read it.  But it’s important that we understand what our patients and our caregivers are going through.  What our frontline staff has to deal with.  And maybe this helps to bring about some context and a sense of reality.”

“This is from Sarah.  One of our palliative medicine staff.  And this is her writing.  ‘I wanted to let you know about a palliative bipap wean.  I was called by the primary that the patient's family was on the way because the patient was unstable and starting to die.  The patient wanted the bipap off.  Thankfully, when I arrived, most of the nurses were at the station.  We were able to talk about how to do a palliative wean of bipap.  The COVID patients require a large amount of ativan and narcotics to reduce the air hunger and that I would stay in there with him the whole time.  I explained that our intention in using the medications was to relieve suffering.  The doctor and I talked about the medication plan prior to starting.  I asked the patient’s nurse if she was comfortable helping, and she was, along with two of the other nurses.  They stayed with us during the duration of the wean.”

“We had to aggressively manage his dysemia.  At one point, the patient tried to crawl out of bed due to air hunger.  The staff was amazing.  We had the Chaplain present too.  The two sons stayed in the room after I prepared them with what to expect during the wean.  Afterwards, I debriefed the nurses involved and congratulated them on a very smooth wean.  And we talked about the event and how they felt about it.  They also stated they would like more palliative education.  I’m so proud of them.  The nurses did an amazing job.  They were calm and worked as a team.  You see, sometimes we don’t get to cure people, we don’t get to send them home.  We just get to provide them comfort.”

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