Respiratory therapists play an essential role during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists the main symptom of COVID-19 as shortness of breath. Severe complications from the virus can lead patients to have pneumonia in both lungs.
“With COVID-19 being such a severe respiratory virus and requiring so many of these patients that need additional supplemental oxygen, noninvasive ventilation or to be mechanically ventilated as a life support mechanism, respiratory therapists have gotten a lot more publicity over the last three to four weeks,” said Timothy Myers, chief business officer of the American Association for Respiratory Care.
Respiratory therapists operate ventilators and save lives by making sure people can breathe. Myers said these health care professionals are trained extensively on how to use the machines.
He said, “99.5 percent of mechanical ventilation done throughout the country is performed by a respiratory therapist under a physician’s order in a critical care setting."
Myers said there are about 150,000 respiratory therapists in the United States.
“They’re in homes. They’re in subacute care facilities. They do diagnostic testing. There are specialized people in neonatal pediatric hospitals. There’s a variety of therapists in every setting of a health care system. And they are a vital player in patients that have respiratory-related diseases,” Myers said.
Luis Garcia, respiratory manager at Baptist Medical Center downtown, said when a patient is admitted into the hospital and has symptoms of COVID-19, respiratory therapists are notified right away.
He said since the virus attacks the lungs, they are on the front lines ready to help patients breathe better.
“One of the complications these patients come in with is severe respiratory distress,” Garcia said.
Garcia said it brings him joy when a patient can breathe again.
“I like to see them just breathe. I mean, that’s what I live for. I love to see those people just get better,” Garcia said.