Jan 21, 2021
The immediate hiring of thousands of unskilled medical people and training them as para-nurses is the solution for the upcoming surge of Covid-19 hospitalizations. So, what is a para-nurse? A para-nurse (nurse assistant) would be someone whose only medical skill before being deployed to a hospital maybe how to use their own PPE. They would be assigned to a nurse and trained on the fly to assist him/her with their duties, eventually performing basic tasks on their own.
Some of the tasks a para-nurse might do are getting a bedridden patient a drink of water, helping them get to the washroom, feeding, or helping with a video call to a relative. This would free up the nurse to better use their time for the high skilled tasks they were trained for. Para-nurses could even be trained to very specific more complicated tasks such as assisting a doctor in rolling an intubated covid patient.
A para-nurse can be hired, trained in PPE, and deployed to a hospital in as little as a couple of days. With unemployment as high as it is, there is a large pool of candidates to choose from. The ideal person, in this case, would be someone that has already had, recovered, and most likely immune to Covid-19. They should be quick learners in good physical condition and no underlying health problems. Other assets would be an empathetic people-person with medical or computer background.
Even though para-nurses could be deployed within days of hiring, ideally, time permitting, a para-nurse would be given the vaccine the day they are hired and go through 6 weeks of training while, at the same time building up immunity. At that point, they would be deployed to a hospital. Being able to wait 6 weeks for a para-nurse however, may not be possible due to sudden rapid demand.
The current lockdown has temporarily reduced the new total number of daily cases in Ontario, but cases will climb rapidly as soon as restrictions are eased. Even if we maintain the lockdown until enough people are vaccinated to establish herd immunity (probably end of 2021), compliancy burnout and the more contagious variants will still eventually drive hospitalizations beyond what we can currently handle. Construction of field hospitals and hiring of para-nurses NOW is critical in saving lives.
Dave Lister
listerlogic@hotmail.com
Emailed: Doug Ford Ontario Premire Jan 21 2021