Nurses, others plead with public to observe safety recommendations
The casualties of COVID-19 extend beyond the patients themselves.
Their families, unable to be in the hospital room to offer comfort, suffer. So, too, do those frontline healthcare workers who are in the room, fully invested in trying to provide what's missing for the patient.
"The best way to describe it, we are the family for these people," said Adena respiratory therapist Jennifer Lower. "Their families can't come in, can't hold their hand, can't tell them they're going to be OK. So we put on a brave face, we go in and tell them those things, we hug them, we cry with them. When we walk out, we have to have our moment, too. We find a room and we cry. We get so close to these patients and we have to tell them goodbye sometimes. We are who they have."
Lower, like many others with shared experiences working with COVID-19 patients at Adena Health System, expressed frustrations the Coronavirus has produced on so many fronts. Frustration for families who can't be with loved ones sometimes fighting for their lives. Frustration brought on by physical and emotional exhaustion. Frustration over trying not to take the mental toll of the work or the virus itself home to their own families. Most importantly, frustration when seeing those in public not wearing masks, not social distancing, not practicing good hand hygiene and choosing to attend large gatherings.
Registered nurse Madison Francis is among those sharing in those frustrations. When she reports for work, she first has to brace for the reality that someone is likely to die at some point during her shift, courtesy of the Coronavirus.
"I would say before COVID-19, I had not dealt with patient death as much because we have a palliative floor, so usually end-of-life is sent to that unit," Francis said. "I'm a float pool nurse, so I go everywhere in the health system, but unless it was something tragic, like a code where we lost a patient, I never really dealt with death that much.
Social Distancing
