Worldwide, people on the entrance strains have been working throughout the clock to include the unfold of COVID-19. With the us experiencing the worst surge of the pandemic this journey season, nurses, physicians, and completely different well being professionals can have their arms full. that is their story.
Inequitable entry to well being care has prolonged been a problem inside the us. Even earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the system was affected by exorbitant prices, lack of insurance coverage safety, and vital well being disparities based mostly on race, income, and ZIP codes. in contrast with completely different developed economies, the U.S. has the very best well being care expenditures, but that funding simply isn’t mirrored in its outcomes. It has a decrease life expectancy than the typical of the OECD (the group of the world’s richest economies), as properly as to diminish ranges of well being care safety.
Now, the COVID-19 virus has forged into sharp aid the extent of the weaknesses of the well being care system inside the U.S. and the method social determinants of well being can have an effect on outcomes in whole communities. COVID-19, which has claimed the lives of greater than 1 / 4-million individuals and counting, has been the take a look at of a lifetime for the American well being care system.
to actually put this into perspective, the United Nations basis spoke to entrance-line workers throughout the nation who’re ending up their jobs amid waves of COVID-19. From a firefighter/EMT concurrently responding to fires — a byproduct of one other deep-rooted problem, the worldwide fight in the direction of local climate change — and fielding medical calls, to a nurse practitioner offering steering on well being companies to most probably the most susceptible segments of her neighborhood, we’ll most probably be that contains individuals whose experiences illustrate the urgency of equitable entry to extreme quality well being care, and why we should #UniteforHealth now.
MEET ANGIE MILLER
Angie Miller is a household nurse practitioner at Heartland well being companies, a Federally licensed well being Clinic (FQHC) in Peoria, Illinois, that gives entry to extreme-extreme quality, low price well being care to a quantity of the realm’s most susceptible, collectively with low-income households, homeless people, and completely different uninsured or underinsured populations.
inform us about your day-to-day working by means of the COVID-19 pandemic
I’ve labored inside the medical area for over 20 years, with expertise in cardiology, infectious illness, inner remedy and pediatrics, and household remedy. Now, I discover myself offering care to COVID-19 sufferers in an outpatient setting.
My function at Heartland is as a end result of the stroll-in supplier. I see all people from newborns to the aged for his or her instantaneous wants, after which I direct them to the relevant place or particular person. for event, in the event that they don’t have a major care supplier, I set them up with one, or in the event that they should go to a specialist, I refer them. I see sufferers for rather rather a lot of wants collectively with school or work physicals, diabetes, hypertension, musculoskeletal accidents, problems, anxiousness, melancholy, STD testing, and suspected COVID-19 circumstances or COVID-19 adjust to-ups.
If somebody is obtainable in with COVID-like signs, I see them to rule out completely different causes for his or her signs, ship them to our testing coronary heart, and have them quarantine till outcomes are again.
in the event that they level out that they’ve a member of the household at residence with the virus, then I get them screened as properly.
How do you are feeling being uncovered to people who doubtlessly have COVID-19?
at first (February/March), i used to be very afraid as a end result of we did not know rather a lot about this virus. the knowledge we acquired was altering virtually day-after-day, and we had been seeing how badly new york was doing. It was additionally getting tougher to get private defending devices (PPE).
I had an sick affected person who acquired here in, and that i may see in her chart that her doctor’s office had not but notified her of her optimistic COVID-19 end result — that was very scary. I don’t get pleasure from being uncovered, however I’ve gotten simply a little extra used to it since i’ve seen COVID-optimistic sufferers. I simply make optimistic i’ve my PPE on and proceed to hope that God protects me.