Hello, I am a frontline nurse.
My job is to stand at the drive through testing site for long hours wearing a mask, faceshield, gloves and protective gown. Currently at the moment im seeing so much panic in people, I know this because they line up at the testsites at 4am and have just started camping out in the carparks. In my state other test sites have closed down due to a whole backlog of tests. But my site still remains open. I give up my personal health and my families to test you. Yes a stranger that I shall never see or meet again. I will get covid-19, it is in evitable because im putting my health on the line to provide you with health care. Yes I get paid for this, but nursing is just not a job for me it is about caring for the sick and vulnerable. I do however get angry when people come to get tested and they dont wear a mask! It is selfish, why are they even coming to get tested when they are being so careless? I hand them a mask and tell them you are here because you think you have covid, you should be wearing a mask to protect me who is testing you and others in the community. I wish I could have denied this person a test for their stupid behaviour (they had no exemption either), but as a nurse I cannot deny health care based on a person's silly behaviour. As a nurse you have to have a thick skin! some try and take advantage of getting tested they will decided because the person in their car is getting tested they will too! Ive told them to drive back around and wait in the line again. As I have no time to fill oput paper work on the spot for them when there are hundreds of other waiting in cars behind them and to try getting them a test pack. Its brutal out there with the way some people are behaving and this is the internal stuggle I am having. I have had to turn away family from visiting their loved ones at hospital, I put myself in their shoes and can feel my heart sink when only one parent can see their child, or a wife cant accompany her husband for chemotherapy. The stuggle is real! keep going everyone we will get there. It might be a long time before we do, but we got this okay.
