Re: Any nurses out there?
1) For clarification, this title indicates it is about nurses, but not all nurses are proficient in IV skills. I worked ED for nearly 30 years and started difficult IVs, including IOs on kids in emergencies. However; there are nurses who work in other areas that almost NEVER start an IV. A nurse is not a nurse is a nurse...as most folks think. But I can recommend good ways to find dfficult veins, etc. to any HCW who asks.
X-ray techs start IVs for your CAT Scan or MRI. Lab Techs can use an IV catheter in some hospitals when they draw blood and can initiate the IV line. Point is, in a pandemic, other HCW besides RNs and LPNs will be trained OTJ to do many procedures they don't normally do. If I can give you a little info ahead of time to help, I will do so. I won't tell you how to do a pericardiocentesis or a needle decompression. You can find that on the internet, too and if you need to do that, you are too far down the tubes.
A word of caution about planning to refill used IV bags with homemade IVF: I would not consider that unless I was truly at the very depths of despair and had nothing left to lose. Nonsterile fluids via NG tube or enema into a contaminated GI tract is far less harmful than further jeopardizing a potentally salvagable loved one only to lose them to bacteremia from unsterile IVF. Before I would even consider it, I would spring a $200 bucks for a few more bags of IVF from the website above to stockpile and even use them if they pass their expiration date than try to make my own (sterility not guaranteed past DOE but proven lasts longer than DOE and absolutely safer than kitchen cooked).
Also, don't forget to prep Liquid Tears or some type of eye lubricating drops to wet corneas in your preps for those who get dehydrated, and add an "old fashioned" baby bottle you can actually squeeze (remember how the older kids would squirt each other with the baby's bottle?) or small squirt bottle to frequently spray small amounts of liquid into the mouth if the person is unable to suck. Just be careful not to spray too much at a time and cause choking. Just enough to keep mucous membraines moist and fluid absorb.
*Not planning on practicing medicine; planning on practicing nursing, common sense and motherhood in the face of threat of losing a child.
