Intubation

I posted this on another site and thought I'd also post it here.

Before a patient can be put on mechanical ventilation, they first must be intubated. There are several different routes for intubation, nasal, endo-tracheal, tracheostomy are a few. It's just a guess, but I would say that endo-tracheal is more commonly used with coronavirus simply because the family of people in hospital receiving mechanical ventilation have stated that their loved one cannot speak. Naturally, the patients are highly sedated as well.

I don't know if people understand that mechanical ventilation is a last resort. I saw this YouTube video of an intubation team from China during their outbreak. I'm in awe as to how protected they are since intubation is a point of direct contact with the virus of course but the equipment they had and the team of doctors that do nothing else but the intubation and setting up of the mechanical ventilation, is truly amazing to see.

They work 12 hour shifts, and as was mentioned in the video, the record for the number of intubations on one shift alone was 9 patients. Maybe I'm just being a geek about this video, but I thought maybe some others might be interested. Incidentally, I'm pretty much in awe at the hospital itself. I think the Chinese put us to shame when it comes to healthcare.

 

I think this is a good thread to mention the video of a doctor in New York taking about ventilators for covid patients, specifically that the current method of using them may be doing more harm than good:

 

Well! that certainly doesn't look like any Fun!

 

Can't speak with nasal (nasotracheal) either, but that is a technically more difficult procedure and exposes healthcare workers to a greater extent.
Tracheostomy is an emergency procedure to secure an airway when endotracheal means have failed