Health professionals risking their lives need better back-up

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When I started medical school in Australia, I knew that sometimes patients would die. I did not think that this career might be the reason that my colleagues and I might die, writes Neela Janakiramanan in this comment piece | OPINION

When I started medical school in Australia, I knew that sometimes patients would die. That despite the collective best efforts of our well trained and resourced health system, sometimes human illness would overwhelm people, and they would pass before their time.

Now comes a rare pandemic. As the global tolls rise, among the dead are patients we thought we would always be able to save. Some are health care workers themselves, in paper gowns and paper masks, still unprotected by the systems that have never protected us.Since March, Australian doctors, nurses and other health care professionals have made difficult plans and decisions. Do they stop immunosuppressant medication that keeps them pain free but might make them more vulnerable.

And it is clear there are serious safety concerns around the provision of PPE, with surveys finding that 20 per cent of doctors and nurses have limited access to it, including masks, and one in five doctors is supplying their own PPE. This news comes even as active infections among health workers in Victoria edged close to 1000 on the weekend.

 

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