Leigh Walker’s workspace moved a few weeks ago.
Then, she worked mainly out of an office in the back of the OxyCare Plus building on Wilkins Wise Road. Now she spends most of her time in the front lobby of the building, watching through locked doors for customers.
OxyCare Plus provides oxygen, sleep therapy and medical equipment to those with respiratory illnesses.
For Walker and her customers, the threat of COVID-19 is never far from their minds. For those with compromised respiratory systems, the virus is no abstraction: It’s an existential threat.
The fear, Walker admits, is palpable.
“I’m a lot more scared now,” said Walker, a sales representative for the company. “Three weeks ago, we would have a lot of people coming in to the office. Now, the doors are locked. We’re doing curbside service for people coming in for their CPAP supplies. It’s serious.”
Against the fear of contracting the virus, Walker sees another ominous reality taking place: Supplies are hard to find.
“We can’t find hand sanitizers,” she said. “We’re short on masks. That’s been a big issue. It’s the same with gloves. There’s nowhere to find them.”
Many of her customers are on CPAP or BiPAP machines, devices used to supplement a person’s oxygen when they are unable to breathe sufficiently.
For those more seriously compromised, the company also provides home ventilators, which are used when a person’s oxygen level falls below 88 percent and they are no longer able to breathe on their own. The non-invasive ventilators, which do not require a tracheotomy, allow people to stay in their home.
With COVID-19 on the rise across the country, a condition which often requires ventilators to treat severe cases, that equipment also is getting much harder to find.
OxyCare Plus has offices in Columbus, Tupelo and Northport, Alabama.
“We currently have 12 patients on home ventilators in Columbus,” Walker said. “We can’t get our hands on (ventilators) anymore. It used to be, we could call our supplier and have three sent to us overnight. Now, there are none to be had.
“I feel helpless when a hospital calls and says, ‘We’ve got a coronavirus patient here and have no way to help them,'” she added. “Well, I have no way to help them, either. It’s scary. It’s heart-breaking.”
Dr. James Woodard, who works at the east Columbus Allegro Clinic, said that while the virus has not reached a crisis point locally, he shudders to think of the consequences of a large, sudden outbreak.
“That’s what’s happening in some other states,” Woodard said. “There are places where the whole health care system is staggering. Maybe you have 20 ventilators, but 50 patients who need them. Who gets them? That’s a terrible situation.”
For Walker and her patients, it’s much like walking on the razor’s edge. She wishes more people would understand the dangers of the virus the way her customers do.
“What I’m taking about is people just riding around, going here and there, just because they don’t want to be at home,” Walker said. “Well, you may not want to be home, but I don’t want to be sick. Our patients don’t want to be sick.
“It’s just a very simple and thoughtful thing,” she added. “You could at least think of other people long enough until we get through this worst part of it, because we haven’t seen the worst of it, I’m here to tell you.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 32 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.