When Genevieve Hamer became a physiotherapist she never imagined she would end up working in an intensive care unit (ICU) through a global pandemic, helping to treat some of Queensland's sickest COVID-19 patients.
She said the past couple of months have been filled with upskilling and learning on the go as the Gold Coast reached its peak of the Omicron wave.
"It's a lot of learning on your feet as well. You're having to adapt your skills quite quickly.
"It was kind of like a process of watching the ICU change day by day.
"The structure of the ICU quite rapidly changed and patient movement changed really quickly."
Senior physiotherapist Lauren O'Connor said four physios are usually dedicated to the ICU, but that jumped to six at times in recent months.
"The past couple of months have definitely been more busy for us with COVID patients.
"Since December, when it started to get really busy, it was just go, go, go."
'Flexed up, done more, learned new techniques'
Gold Coast Health reached a peak on January 20, admitting 202 patients with COVID-19 symptoms.
The ICU's peak was several days earlier, with 15 COVID patients flagged on January 15.
ICU senior specialist Jon Field said staff, of all specialties, were forced to be adaptable as COVID-19 cases rose.
"How to be adaptable, how to scale things up quickly, how to deploy new treatments."
Dr Field said staff had come out of retirement and retrained to join the ICU team.
"If they [the patients] are sick they're weak, especially if they've overweight. We have to assist," Dr Field said.
"Physios play a big role in that, nursing staff, wardies.
Treating a COVID-19 patient in ICU
Dr Field also said the types of treatment used for COVID-19 patients in ICU were more labour-intensive.
"Proning, which is where we nurse them on their tummies, has been a very important part of caring for patients with COVID," he said.
For patients with complete oxygenation failure, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (EMCO) treatment was deployed.
"If the lungs completely fail we put them on a heart-lung bypass machine. It takes a minimum of two nurses continuously by the bedside and, of course, the allied health staff," he said.
"We've had a number of patients with COVID who've gotten to that point."
A physio's role in the ICU
"I think a lot of people still wonder what physios do during a pandemic," Ms O'Connor said.
Ms O'Connor said they worked alongside other healthcare workers to form part of the treatment team.
"For the COVID patients, because their respiratory system and breathing is such a problem, it's more about trying to optimise their breathing as best they can," Ms O'Connor said.
"They may look OK from the end of the bed, but because they're on such high amounts of oxygen anything they do causes them to get really breathless."
She said the work can involve repositioning the patients if they were unable to move themselves.
"Part of our role is education, to minimise breathlessness, and also how to recover when they do exert themselves."
