New dimensions in airway management: risks for healthcare staff

Abstract

In April 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the novel coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) as a pandemic, with horrific death tolls on a global scale, including many brave healthcare workers. As experiences from our Italian colleagues started to filter through, many of us delivered staff training for COVID‐19 adaptations to airway management and it was soon clear that the mood was different. The willingness to learn was ever present, but a new, palpable nervousness resided throughout the groups. Many colleagues were scared, ourselves included; like watching a tsunami from the shore, waiting for it to hit. The anxiety stemmed largely from the thought that an overwhelming number of patients may require intubation, but also unease based on personal risk, as frontline healthcare workers and, in particular, airway managers. Tracheal intubation and facemask ventilation rank highly on the WHO list of aerosol‐generating procedures with odds ratios of infection at 6.6 and 2.8, respectively. In carrying out our role, we and our team members would be right up close and personal to this frightening disease.

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.1111/anae.15223

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https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/publications/bb50730d-31bd-435c-a569-9155f39efc77