Here's a thought about ventilators.

[Arkansas Granny]

Link to tweet

?s=20


Chelsea Clinton
✔
@ChelseaClinton
A good friend who is an anesthesiologist in Virginia is coordinating with her local veterinary academy to increase her hospital’s supply of ventilators when they approach capacity in the ICU. She realized that out our pets mostly use the same ventilators we do.

3,388
9:00 AM - Mar 17, 2020

I wonder how big an impact having these ventilators available would make.

[DarthDem]

1. Good for Chelsea to point this out to her followers

She's such a wonderful person.

[Wounded Bear]

2. Emergency times require emergency measures...

Presumably they can be sterilized like human intended ones can.

[Laelth]

3. A shortage of ventilators ...

... is the principal reason that Italy is being forced to ration care, afaik.

-Laelth

[58Sunliner]

4. Every little bit helps.

For those of you with Bi-pap, or even Cpap you may want to dust them off.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. The impact is potentially huge.

When a patient needs to be on a ventilator, there has to be one available.

The alternative? A respiratory therapist would have to be at the bedside, manually pumping air into the patient. It's hard work and impossible to do over the long haul.

I've never seen it done for more than a few minutes or maybe half an hour. It is a very critical time.

[getagrip_already]

6. vets use them for surgery - not long term care.....

People end up on them for weeks at a time. Vets really only use them for surgery and the occasional pneumonia case - though that is rare unless you are at a place like tufts veterinary school. So there aren't a lot of these out there.

Vets can use a bag to ventilate during surgery. It takes another hand, but it isn't going to be pet genocide.

Just thought I'd put pet lovers at ease.