COVID patients ‘begging for a vaccination' moments before they are put on life support, senior nurses reveal

A senior intensive care nurse at a major Melbourne hospital said seeing patients die from COVID-19 alone made she and her colleagues "emotional" as she implored Victorians to get vaccinated.

Michelle Spence, an ICU nurse unit manager from the Royal Melbourne Hospital, told a COVID-19 press conference on Sunday that the virus "does not discriminate", describing how she had watched a man in his 30s with no underlying conditions be placed in ICU last week because he had not been vaccinated.

She became visibly emotional as she described the lonely deaths in ICU for COVID-19 patients, saying it was the nurses who "hold their hands while their families have to be at home".

"One of the saddest things I've seen over the last few weeks is people wanting the vaccination just before we put them on a life support machine," she said.

"That is the absolute truth, I've seen it myself, they're begging for the vaccination, they are very young, and once we get to that point where we are about to put them on life support, it really is too late."

Ms Spence said the average age of patients in ICU with the virus was 60, but she had seen patients aged in their 20s and 30s.

The Royal Melbourne Hospital is currently caring for 135 COVID-19 patients, with 19 in ICU. There are 49 people in hospital-at-home care, while eight people with COVID-19 are in the emergency department waiting for a bed in the hospital.

Ms Spence said she was "absolutely begging" Victorians to help nurses who are already under enormous pressure by getting vaccinated.

"The one thing you can do for you, for your family and your loved ones, and the one thing you can do for your health care system is to get vaccinated," she said.

"Please do not wait. I know you're frustrated. I know you're scared. I know you're over it, we're all over it. But it's time to absolutely make a difference."

Jacqui Harper, a nurse unit manager at the Northern Hospital, said: "COVID is real, it's affecting younger and younger age groups, and it's scary."

"COVID-19 is a terrible illness, the patients we see coming into our hospitals are seriously, seriously ill," she said.

"The clinical deterioration is so sad. One minute sitting in a chair. An hour later, they could be saying their goodbyes."

I am fully vaccinated - but I have an eye test appointment tomorrow  weakened considerably after the second shot,    I am seeing an optician tomorrow.   However, under the circumstances I am not going to take a booster shot afterwards  under any corcumstances.

Most reasonable people would rather take a shot - but  what bothers me is the attitude of medical and  nursing staff treating the patients,   According to a recent survey about 60 000 of such staff members in the USA have refused to be vaccinated and one wonders why?

I believe that the final decision on vaccination should be taken by medical doctors and when they advised against it - the State should not enforce it.     There are some people with morbidities  - such as people with blood clotting problems -  that should not be vaccinated  and neither should pregnant women be until after delivery.   

Strict medical compliance should be the norm  and it is better for political and religious fanatics to not interfere in fighting the China virus totally.   Medical treatment  to fight the actual virus problem  - such as measures that actually destroy the virus and not the preventing vaccines - which seems to  be ineffective insofar as spreading of the disease is concerned -  are slowly emerging  and that I think is where the actual solution lis.