Chelsea Walsh will soon be a media sensation after her unabashed interview with Hari Sreenivasan on Amanpour & Co. last night. She has been helping to fill voids left in nursing staffs around the country ever since coronavirus broke out in March. She can tell you what this virus is really like, how it ravages both young and old, and is most definitely not something to play with. As she says in the end, "you either have had to be there or you can trust me or you can wait till you have your own experience."
Several things stand out from the interview. Perhaps the foremost is that she is uninsured, as she serves as a contract employee and can't afford her own health insurance. She said she has felt COVID symptoms at least three times over the past 8 months and figures her time will come at some point, as it has for many other nurses she has worked with. Nurses are the frontline workers. She said doctors often keep their distance, relying on the nurses' diagnoses to prescribe treatment and medication. They often have to resort to self made PPE as the personal protection equipment is in short supply. A nurse is usually the last person a patient sees before he or she dies, and the nurse is usually the one who is asked to contact relatives afterward. There are no hugs or any kind of intimate exchanges. Just words of condolence and encouragement through these horribly trying times.
She also notes how surprising to her it is that people still don't appreciate the severity of this pandemic given the enormous death toll. She watched one young woman bleed out of every orifice in her body due to complications from the virus. COVID-19 attacks persons in so many different ways that doctors still struggle to find the right treatments and medicines to combat it. There has literally been nothing like it before.
Despite all her harrowing stories, she still offers hope. She talks about the selfless nature of nurses across the country despite the fact that they aren't getting any additional pay for their efforts or getting the proper PPE they need to limit their own risk to the virus. Many nurses have quit or been let go when they came down with the virus. Many have died.
The next time you think this virus is fake or not that serious or that somehow doctors and nurses are profiting off COVID-19, watch this interview. These nurses are truly some of the most selfless persons on the planet for putting themselves on the frontline of this horrible virus.
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