BOSTON (WHDH) - A story you’ll see on just one station: Have a pair of binoculars you aren’t using? An old baby monitor? Or an extra power strip? Hank Phillippi Ryan found ways you can help COVID-19 ICU nurses working on the frontlines stay safe and help patients.
Tufts Medical Center COVID ICU nurses have figured out a new way to get up close and personal with their quarantined coronavirus patients.
“We’re innovative,” Kathy McSweeney, a registered nurse who works in the Tufts Medical Center COVID ICU said.
“We’ve gotten very creative with different things,” Kayley Ryan, a registered nurse who works in the Tufts Medical Center COVID ICU said.
We found they’re using equipment they can’t get in the medical supply closet, and it’s making a critical difference.
Binoculars help them monitor patients without entering their rooms.
“We can look inside the rooms and look at our pumps and vent settings so we’re limiting our exposure,”
Kelly Hanigan-Chase, who is the clinical nursing director of the Tufts Medical Center medical ICU and the COVID ICU said.
Limiting their exposure helps conserve PPE.
“It gives us a safer feeling,” McSweeney said.
They’re also using baby monitors to help them communicate with patients and health care workers inside quarantined rooms.
“It’s hard work. It’s stressful in there,” McSweeney said
“It’s a whole different world. Being in a cap and communicating through baby monitors,” Ryan said.
All the binoculars and baby monitors have been donated —but now as nurses prepare for a possible surge of patients they say they are grateful for anything you can spare.
“The outpouring is really, really nice. It keeps us going,” McSweeney said.
“It does,” Ryan said.
If you’d like to help, nurses need: binoculars, video baby monitors and power strips.
Donations should be dropped off at the Pratt Diagnostic Center. Entrance at 750 Washington St., Boston, MA 02111
Hours are: 7:00 am – 3:00 pm Monday – Friday.
When donations are brought to the center:
The individual will be asked to call the Command Center (617-636-0111).
A member of the Command Center team will meet the donor to accept the donation and gather the necessary contact information.
Donations may also be shipped to:
Tufts Medical Center
Attn: Supply Chain Donations
25 Harvard St.
Boston, MA 02111
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