By Megan Messerly/The Nevada Independent
The hospitals across Nevada have grown quiet.
Elective surgeries have been delayed. Patient volume is down. Expectant mothers who might have brought a troupe of family members and friends with them for delivery are now limited to a single visitor. Hospitalized kids, too, are generally limited to one parent. Most everyone else in the hospital, coronavirus patients among them, are alone.
![](https://i1.wp.com/215northwest.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/nevada-independent.jpg?resize=364%2C138&ssl=1)
The quiet is eerie, the result of steps taken by hospitals in recent weeks to reduce their patient volume in anticipation of an influx of seriously ill COVID-19 patients. It’s the calm before the storm.
This is the picture painted by more than a dozen health care workers across the state, most of whom spoke to The Nevada Independent on condition of anonymity to talk freely about their experiences on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic: The regular din of hospital life has been reduced to a murmur, the number of coronavirus patients is growing, and, increasingly, health care workers are anxious that they don’t have the proper resources they need to keep themselves safe.
“They’ve been extremely unprepared. Talking to nurses that work at different hospitals in different systems, Las Vegas in general was not prepared for this,” said a nurse who works for the Valley Health System in Southern Nevada. “I feel like they just kind of ignored the situation thinking, ‘Oh, it won’t really happen. It’s not that bad. It’s not going to come across the waters. We’re good.’”
For the rest of this story, click here