VENTILATORS for COVID actually killed! Did more harm than good, and thats the irony, in that too, we were misled; I am not saying people were deliberate, but this was a reckless insane policy
by Paul Alexander
I share some reports and the key here is a proper comparative effectiveness study must be commissioned but from all I know, the ventilators failed more than helped and many many died due to it
Lots have been learnt the last 2 years and one thing we have learnt is that the rush to use so many ventilators was actually catastrophic for many. Many died from the ventilator and we will need to examine this properly with proper study to ensure we learn why so very many died e.g. whether these can be used again in a similar situation or never to be used or under what conditions or what type of patient with what level of lung trauma etc. prohibits the vent. For it seems that the ventilator actually damaged the lungs terribly and killed. It is really sad and horrible what happened and we are not blaming but we also had early information but like so much of COVID, no one in decision-making roles wanted to listen to me, to anyone, anyone sharing data and information. There was this tunnel vision thinking, a cognitive dissonance that costed lives. That’s the final result and in some way, there is to be accountability. Let us commit to learn from this terrible mistake.
1)Study: Most N.Y. COVID Patients on Ventilators Died
“Among the 2,634 patients for whom outcomes were known, the overall death rate was 21%, but it rose to 88% for those who received mechanical ventilation, the Northwell Health COVID-19 Research Consortium reported.”
The findings also add fuel to the notion that ventilators may sometimes do more harm than good for patients battling for life with severe COVID-19.
Mechanical ventilators work by pushing air into the lungs of critically ill patients who can no longer breathe well on their own. These patients must be sedated and have a tube stuck into their throat.
Recognizing that complications from ventilator use can occur, some intensive care units (ICUs) have started to delay putting a COVID-19 patient on a ventilator until the last possible moment, when it is truly a life-or-death decision, said Dr. Udit Chaddha, an interventional pulmonologist with Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
"There had been a tendency earlier on in the crisis for people to put patients on ventilators early, because patients were deteriorating very quickly," Chaddha said. "That is something that most of us have stepped away from doing.
"We let these patients tolerate a little more hypoxia [oxygen deficiency]. We give them more oxygen. We don't intubate them until they are truly in respiratory distress," Chaddha said. "If you do this correctly, if you put somebody on the ventilator when they need to be put on the ventilator and not prematurely, then the ventilator is the only option."
3)Are Ventilators Helping or Harming COVID-19 Patients?
“But the ventilator also marks a crisis point in a patient's COVID-19 course, and questions are now being raised as to whether the machines can cause harm, too.
Many who go on a ventilator die, and those who survive likely will face ongoing breathing problems caused by either the machine or the damage done by the virus.”
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A frontline nurse working in New York on coronavirus patients claims the city is killing sufferers by putting them on ventilators, advocating against them
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The nurse persuaded a friend, a nurse practitioner who is not working on coronavirus patients, to make the video to get the word out
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'It's a horror movie. Not because of the disease, but the way it is being handled,' the frontline nurse said through the friend, who only was identified as Sara NP
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Sara said COVID-19 patients are placed on ventilators rather than less invasive CPAP or BiPAP machines due to fears about the virus spreading
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She explained: 'The ventilators have high pressure, which then causes barotrauma, it causes trauma to the lungs'
“In a YouTube video posted earlier this month New York emergency room doctor Cameron Kyle-Sidell said: 'I've talked to doctors all around the country and it is becoming increasingly clear that the pressure we're providing may be hurting their lungs.
'It is highly likely that the high pressures we're using are damaging the lungs of the patients we are putting the breathing tubes in.
'It's not our fault. We didn't know,' added Kyle-Sidell, saying that is the way other acute respiratory syndromes have been treated.”
5)Ventilators are being overused on COVID-19 patients, world-renowned critical care specialist says
“Italian experts say many patients fare poorly on ventilators; Toronto expert says more data needed”
“COVID-19 patients, like those suffering from ARDS, have below-normal levels of oxygen in their blood, which leads to breathing problems. In ARDS cases, the lungs lose their elasticity. But in many cases of COVID-19, the lungs remain elastic and people are able to continue breathing for some time despite the low oxygen levels.
This "remarkable combination is almost never seen in severe ARDS," he writes, adding that patients with normal looking lungs but low oxygen are at risk of lung injury from the ventilators, where pressure from the air damages the thin air sacs that exchange oxygen with the blood.”
6)Ventilators Are No Panacea For Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients
“Next, a long plastic tube is inserted through the trachea and vocal cords. That allows a machine to deliver small puffs of highly oxygenated air to the lungs.
Unfortunately, Osborn says, "the ventilator itself can do damage to the lung tissue based on how much pressure is required to help oxygen get processed by the lungs."
And coronavirus patients often need dangerously high levels of both pressure and oxygen because their lungs have so much inflammation.
Another risk from being on a ventilator is that the tube carrying air and extra oxygen to the lungs provides a pathway for dangerous germs. Many ventilated patients get a new lung infection, a problem known as ventilator-associated pneumonia.”
“Most coronavirus patients who end up on ventilators go on to die, according to several small studies from the U.S., China and Europe.
And many of the patients who continue to live can't be taken off the mechanical breathing machines.”