Melbourne nurse's worst fear comes true
A young nurse in Melbourne said that she pleaded for better protective equipment because she feared contracting COVID-19 and her worst fear has come true.
"I had requested an N95 respirator mask while I was caring for COVID-19 patients but was told it was unnecessary and that there wasn't the science to back it up," she said to ABC.
Instead, she was given a surgical mask and a plastic face shield.
More than 1,100 Victorian healthcare workers have contracted coronavirus, with several ending up in intensive care.
She has asked to remain anonymous but developed severe muscle pain, debilitating fevers and bad headaches.
"I had a panic attack when I got the positive COVID-19 result. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't speak," she said.
"It was my worst fear."
She has been in isolation and has not seen her one-year-old daughter since being diagnosed.
"I don't know when I am going to see my baby again," she said.
"It's debilitating and very hard mentally."
She worked on a ward in a Melbourne hospital and said that she repeatedly asked for a N95 mask.
"I was very fearful that I would get COVID-19 without it," she said.
"I wanted to help people and comfort COVID-19 patients who are petrified.
"But why did my health need to be compromised?"
There is conflicting advice from federal and state health authorities about what type of face masks healthcare workers should be wearing when treating confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients.
Infectious diseases physician Michelle Ananda-Rajah wants one national policy to protect healthcare workers.
"There is a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety among healthcare workers all around the country — nurses, doctors, allied health [and] aged care workers — because they feel like they can't speak up against these guidelines and they don't feel adequately protected," she said.
She said the advice offered by an expert panel was based on an outdated understanding that COVID-19 was spread only through droplets, despite new evidence that it could spread through fine particles that floated in the air and got around a surgical mask.
"When you actually wear one of these [surgical] masks, you get a lot of gaps around your face … and essentially that then allows air to flow preferentially through those gaps and into the wearer and potentially infect the wearer," she said.
Doctors across Australia do not want to see what happened to healthcare workers in Victoria replicated in other states.
Australian Medical Association NSW president Danielle McMullen said that having healthcare workers in Victoria make up one in 10 infections was unacceptable.
"What has been happening in Victoria with personal protective equipment has been inadequate," she said.
"We need a clear set of advice in NSW on how personal protective equipment guideline use can be escalated and we do not want to see healthcare worker deaths.