Nurses Association

Heidi Lucas joins us to talk about nurses on the frontlines of the pandemic.

About the stresses and fears that surround treating patients.

Joining us today is to talk about the front line nurses is heidi lucas.

A lot of us are thinking about our front line workers.

We're curious about how they're doing, what can you tell us?

>> a lot of them are really scared.

I mean in a lot of our rural communities, they aren't seeing the big push yet that we're seeing out on the front lines in new york or california or even what is happening in detroit.

And missouri we will eventually get to it.

Might not be as big as it is on coast but it's coming.

It's working through that fear particularly when we're talking about how so many people are asymptomatic when they come in.

Or you're going out and you might be talking to a neighbor and you might have it and you might not even know it.

It's how a lot of our nurses are as well.

If a patient coming in for a broken leg or a cough.

That could be a potential covid case.

And they just don't know.

So it's like that waiting for the storm to come.

They are anticipating that it's going to come, and it will.

Just the concern they have in the worry of when is it going to come.

How bad is it going to be?

>> heidi.

Nurses in missouri, just like all nurses all over the country are mandates to respect hippa laws.

What happens in a pandemic where they need to advocate for themselves?

>> this puts our healthcare workers in a precarious position.

They are unable to do so.

Because you know when advocating for a patient or advocating for their large community as well, as well as for themselves and their coworkers and friends and family.

It's just been a problem really for them to not be able to share what is actually going on.

I think it gives us a hope of security and not everyday deal who is a nurse or works in healthcare.

They may not have any idea how bad it is because we're not hearing from folks on the ground.

>> what is the discrepancy what you're hearing from hospitals and those nurses?

>> so hospitals are very much putting out that you know they're good on ppe everything is fine.

What we're hearing from inside the hospitals is ppe is not available to every staff member who wants to wear it.

I understand the supplies are limited.

The problem is like i mentioned before, because there is covid-19 is so invisible, that really in order to stop the spread of the system, esh needs to wear ppe.

That's not happening.

And our healthcare workers saying we need this to happen.

We are going to get sick.

And it's kind of a double edged sword.

I have been working to sure more ppe from other resources to help out our independent practitioners, it's becoming almost impossible to find them.

I do understand the problems the hospitals are faces but if our front line workers