Area students studying respiratory therapy are going right to work

STOUGHTON — Since the coronavirus has swept across the U.S., we’ve learned of a massive need for ventilators.

But equally important is a need for the people who know how to run them. That’s where respiratory therapists or RT’s come to the rescue.

Martha DeSilva, director of the respiratory care program at Massasoit Community College, said the need is great.

“As you know we are needing to oxygenate and ventilate these patients that have COVID,” DeSilva said.

DeSilva knows first hand. She is also a respiratory therapist at New England Sinai Hospital in Stoughton.

One of her students, Alyssa Do Couto, is a senior who is already working at the same hospital due to the shortage of RT’s. She says the coronavirus has made her skills valuable.

“I guess I was glad this happened because I would have had to wait until I graduated to be on the floors like this,” Do Couto said while at the hospital in Stoughton.

Do Couto is currently able to work because she’s taken one test and has what’s called her “limited license” that allows her to help run ventilators with supervision.

DeSilva says many of her students are also working.

“They’ve already done the mechanical ventilation part (of the exam) so they were able to go into hospitals to take care of these ventilators like Alyssa is doing right now,” DeSilva said.

There was hope the state exam could be pushed up to help license RT’s sooner, but with graduation a month away, that’s unlikely. Still, these students are in such high demand that once they pass the state boards they will go right to work.

DeSilva says they’ll be needed in many of Boston’s best hospitals. “They go to MGH, Floating, Tufts, Brigham and Women’s, they go to Beth Israel,” she said.

Do Couto wants to help even more and she is very much aware of the demand for more respiratory therapists.

DeSilva agreed.

“You can’t live without oxygen,” she said.

© 2020 Cox Media Group