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A Covid Patient Goes Home After a Rare Double Lung Transplant

By Kristie J. Fields 1 week ago

The last thing that Mayra Ramirez remembers from the emergency room at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago is calling her family to say she had Covid, was about to be put on a ventilator and needed her mother to make medical decisions for her.

Ms. Ramirez, 28, did not wake up for more than six weeks. And then she learned that on June 5, she had become the first Covid patient in the United States to receive a double-lung transplant.

On Wednesday, she went home from the hospital.

Ms. Ramirez is one of a small but growing number of patients whose lungs have been destroyed by the coronavirus, and whose only hope of survival is a lung transplant.

“I’m pretty sure that if I had been at another center, they would have just ended care and let me die,” she said in an interview on Wednesday.

The surgery is considered

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A Covid-19 Lesson: Some Seriously Ill Patients Can Be Treated at Home

By Kristie J. Fields 3 weeks ago

Joan Murray had been home with Covid-19 for about a week when she ran into trouble. She had a fever of 103 degrees and chills that sent shivers up and down her spine. Her oxygen levels were dropping, and the tightness in her chest felt “as if somebody had bound up my lungs with string.”

But the 77-year-old, a retired registered nurse who lives alone in Westbury, N.Y., was adamant that she wanted to fight the illness at home. “As a nurse, maybe I knew too much,” she said. “The last place I wanted to be was the hospital.”

So the hospital came to her.

Northwell Health, which has cared for thousands of coronavirus patients in its network of facilities in New York State, sent a nurse manager to Ms. Murray’s home in May. Covered head to toe in protective gear — gown, gloves, mask, shield and disposable bootees —

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‘When Am I Coming Home?’: A Tough Month Inside a Virus Recovery Unit

By Kristie J. Fields 2 months ago

Charlie Blueweiss, 33, woke up believing he was in a secret infirmary in an airport somewhere, maybe in China. He was certain someone was stalking him; threatening messages seemed to keep appearing on screens around him.

As his confusion — which is common among Covid-19 patients who have spent a long stint on a mechanical ventilator — dissipated in the coming days, Mr. Blueweiss began to take stock of his situation. He realized that he was in the intensive care unit at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan, and that those screens were displaying his vital signs and medical updates.

The 15 days on the ventilator left a deep sore on one cheek, and he struggled to unclench his right hand. His right foot burned with pain and he was too weak to sit up. He could not unlock his phone to call his wife because his hands were

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Testing Nursing Home Workers Can Help Stop Coronavirus. But Who Should Pay?

By Kristie J. Fields 2 months ago

Nationally, a similar standoff is also playing out. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners has asked the federal government for better guidance about how screening tests should be covered, but an association spokeswoman said the group had not yet received a response. A spokeswoman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, said it was also waiting for federal advice on employee testing.

“It is essential that strategies that addresses workplace testing be part of an overarching public and occupational health strategy, and that federal guidance clearly articulate the roles of insurance providers, employers and public health officials,” the spokeswoman, Kristine Grow, said in a statement.

Admiral Giroir said last Wednesday that insurers, who are required to cover medically necessary coronavirus tests under the federal CARES act, should not be asked to cover worker screenings. “We would expect that to be borne either by the employer directly or under

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