School Nurses Raid Stash To Bring Needed PPE To Christ Hospital

BURBANK, IL — When a school nurse read on Patch that nurses were in desperate need of thermometer probe covers for coronavirus patients at Advocate Christ Medical Center, she thought of the hundreds of covers sitting unused in a supply cabinet at her shuttered school.

“I thought of our unopened surplus sitting in our health supply cabinet,” Elayna Burns said, the district nurse for Burbank Dist 111. “We certainly weren’t using them to take kids’ temperatures.”

Just as Burns was thinking about all those Welch Allyn thermometers lying unused in the supply cabinet at Liberty Junior High School, her colleague, Kimberly Peters, a district nurse’s aide, texted Burns the Patch story with Advocate Christ nursing finance manager Karen Bogdan’s urgent plea:

“Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn Illinois is desperate for [Welch Allyn] oral temperature probe covers. If your Medical Offices are closed, please consider a donation. Donations accepted at our dock on Kostner between the Christ and Hope Hospitals. We need hand sanitizer, too! Thank you!”

“Kim texted me that she had at least five extra boxes,” Burns said. “We decided to go get them.”

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The Welch Allyn oral probe is the thermometer of choice at most hospitals and health care facilities because it is said to be the most accurate. Probe covers are single-use plastic sheets that slip over the thermometer, which goes into a patient’s mouth under the tongue. The covers prevent cross infection.

“Everywhere I’ve worked, we used the Welch Allyns,” Burns said. “They are going through them like crazy because nurses are constantly monitoring COVID-19 patients’ temperatures. Right now, there is short supply and companies have them on back order.”

Burns and Peters decided to go on a stealth mission for the probe covers. They raided the supply cabinets at Liberty and Fry Elementary School in Burbank. Not only did school nurse and health aide find 2,000 Welch Allyn probe covers, they discovered 1,000 pairs of plastic gloves, a box of alcohol wipes, 1,500 surgical masks and two large pumps of hand sanitizer.

They loaded up Peters’ car with their bounty. Burns followed Peters to the loading dock between the hospital and Advocate Children’s. The security guard went and fetched a nurse.

“The nurse started tearing up,” Burns said. “She told us they didn’t have one probe cover left in the hospital.”

Asked if they would get in trouble for raiding the schools’ supply cabinets of personal protection equipment Burns replied “the thought did cross our minds.”

“At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we had ordered two temple touch thermometers for our schools because they don’t go inside the mouth and it was easier for our non-medical staff to take children’s temperatures,” Burns said. “As school nurses, we wanted to help our front line nurses.”

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