If you are a nurse and working with covid positive patients do you have full PPE?

[Whatevah]

I am working in theatre/ICU area so we have full PPE with covid positive patients. But I was horrified to learn that the nurses on the wards caring for covid positive patients do not have full PPE. They only have the basics of paper mask, apron and gloves.
This has horrified me, I feel so guilty. I think they are even more at risk, as ventilated patients are in a very controlled environment. All the masks and care they give must be a higher risk. Its awful!
Is anyone else expected to work with known covid positive patients without full PPE?

Yeah the changing of the guidelines from change your mask regularly to "you're fine to leave it on for 12 and a half hours" is not helpful.

Helpful for our anxiety levels I meant to say. We're not stupid, we know it will be less effective over time.

I've seen, on Facebook , lots of local volunteers sewing masks, making scrubs etc etc "for our local hospital".

To those of you working at the coal face right now, will these be of any use to an NHS worker in need of PPE, or are they just a waste of time and effort?
Or, is it a case of something being better than nothing?

As an ex-NHS employee, I would have thought that home-made stuff, wouldn't come up to standard, but I have been shocked to see what frontline staff were wearing in Wuhan compared to the adapted bin bags as modelled by some staff last week.

I really don't understand how a patient who would be on a closed suction system and who is attached to a ventilator is more of a risk then an equally positive patient, who is coughing, sneezing etc into the surroundings

@Wingedharpy there are technical specifications set out by PHE that have to be met for donated PPE

We have had some amazing visors and scrubs!

That's good to hear @NurseJaques.

The masks I saw being made just seemed to be made from fabric so I wasn't sure if they would serve any useful purpose at all.

We've all been fit tested but only time we would wear full ffp3 and gown on our ward is optiflow/cpap type scenarios. But now wear the basic ppe with everyone as parents ( allowed 1) or patient could be carriers/positive as not testing everyone.

My partner nurses on a ward they are supposed to be using for suspected patients, but it’s becoming regular that the suspected ones are positive. They hardly have any masks, patients coughing over everybody and are nursing positive patients in open bays amongst the non-infected and management don’t care.

I am a bank healthcare assistant and on the covid ward they have aprons, gloves, surgical masks and visor. They had a few of the full length gowns but it was written on the box that they were only to be used with patients that tend to grab otherwise they would run out. I had to special 3 men on my own and you arebt supposed to stay in the room but they were all so bad I ended up spending hours in the room at a time so totally over exposed

for you all x

www.aeppe.co.uk/

Don't know if this helps but this company allows you do donate/buy the visors and send them. I'm sure there are others like it.

dd on a "non-covid" ward with at least half the patients waiting for results (and then moved out when they inevitably come back positive, eventually) in normal uniform, apron, one paper mask per shift - and they run out almost every shift - which cannot be removed at all now (so is sodden and stinky after a couple of hours), no visors except for patients with tracheotomies, so hood or hair cover.

I'm really hoping she's had it, a mild dose perhaps - back at the beginning she was nursing positive patients without even a mask, and felt shitty for a few days (but wasn't tested because her temp wasn't high enough ).

She acquired a set of safety goggles outside the hospital but isn't allowed to wear them - not uniform, apparently.

So this is scary . I really don't feel safe wearing a surgical mask instead of a ffp3/N95.