We asked a surgeon friend of ours what we can do to help THEM out, and he brought up some really interesting points that you may not have thought about. One of the big ones: to continue to donate blood. The full list is below.
The obvious:
1) Stay at home!
2) Practice Social Distancing.
3) Wash your hands.
The less obvious:
4) STOP hoarding toilet paper and groceries.
5) If you have any PPE such as masks, gloves, N95 masks (Lots of trades folk use these) consider donating them to health care. We will at some point run out.
6) Consider donating blood. This is one of the few socially acceptable reasons to leave the house at the moment and blood donations will likely be down (by an estimated 50-70%) during this time. Patients will still need blood and lives will be lost without it.
7) Donate to local shelters (Drop-Inn, CUPS, DOAP team, Women’s shelters, etc.) Those vulnerable patients will be at very high risk.
8) Minimize high risk outdoor activities such as back country skiing, mountain biking, road biking, ATVs, snowmobiles, horseback riding, etc. If people get seriously injured in the next few weeks there’s a chance you’ll be taking up a high value ICU bed/ventilator.
9) Given that the Calgary & Alberta economy was already in rough shape, this is going to make it much much worse. People who have been living paycheck to paycheck and may now not have that paycheck. Sadly, we expect petty crime (and associated violence) will likely go up. Watching out for each other, helping the vulnerable, and being vigilant will hopefully minimize this.
10) This one may seem particularly dark but read the article below to get some perspective. Get your affairs in order and talk to your family about your personal wishes in the event you end up in an ICU. Review your life insurance, will, personal directive, and power of attorney. If you don’t have these things in place now is a great time to be sitting at home and getting them written up.
The article explaining the importance of this is HERE