Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital caregivers share their support. Image obtained from Mayo Newhall Hospital’s YouTube.
By Tristini Tomlinson
The COVID-19 pandemic has displaced countless lives throughout the world in one way or another. No sector has felt this more than the healthcare industry where nurses, doctors and other medical staff risking their well-being on a daily basis.
Special procedures and protocol had to be enacted at the Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital in Valencia, California, to prevent the virus’ spread to medical staff, Mark Puleo, the hospital’s Vice President Chief Human Resources Officer, said. The hospital’s ordinary protocol had to be adjusted in order to ration personal protective equipment.
“People were using (personal protective equipment) a lot more than they should,” Puleo said. “We started keeping track of our burn rate and how quickly the supplies were being used. We believe we have enough supplies; it is all up to us if we are going to be good stewards of their use.”
Across the entire country, other hospitals have been forced to institute similar procedures, he said. If the equipment were being used rationally its supply would not be so limited.
In order to curb cross-contamination in the hospital’s facilities, Puleo said coronavirus patients are confined to different levels than the general patient population.
“Today, we have 31 positive COVID patients in house,” he said. “In my opinion, that’s a much (smaller) number of patients than we anticipated having. We believe we’re at the apex of the most amount of patients we’re going to see. We probably are not going to see any more than around 30 and then it will start tailing off.”
Mayo Newhall Hospital has discharged 21 recovered coronavirus patients at the time of this story’s publication. Puleo said this figure is significant because it shows that recovery from COVID-19 is entirely feasible.
But not all healthcare personnel have been battling the virus directly each day. Emily Steahly, a nurse in the emergency department at Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas in Austin, said her life was upended when she was furloughed due to the pandemic.
“I became a nurse to help people and right now I feel completely useless,” Steahly said.
Unable to fulfill her calling, she said the inability to work has left her distraught. She has even considered going to New York in order to lend assistance where it is most needed.
Emily Steahly, nurse at Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas, poses in front of the hospital’s facilities. Image obtained from Steahy’s Instagram.
“In a time that I thought I would be needed the most I’m not needed at all,” Steahly said. “I feel selfish because I am complaining about the fact that I don’t get to work, and there’s nurses in hot-spot states like New York that are struggling so much.”
Accounts across the country of hospital staff being overworked in unsafe conditions has made Steahly feel helpless, she said. In the meantime, her new daily routine includes working a temporary job to get by.
Burn out from long hours of providing health care has become an all-too common occurrence during the coronavirus pandemic, Hannah Smith, a telemetry nurse at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota, said. Hospital staff often rely on the support of their co-workers during this challenging time.
“I work in the cardiac step-down unit specializing in patients recovering from open heart surgery,” Smith said. “The hospital I work at created a telemetry COVID unit, which is where I have spent the majority of my shifts.”
While Minnesota has has success with stifling the virus’ spread, she said the industry anticipates a resurgence over the summer. So far, COVID units across the state are continue to be fully staffed and operational.
Camaraderie with other nurses is an important aspect her job amid the increased pandemic work load, she said. The mindset of “we are all in this together” has brought her unit closer together.
“It is tiring, being in the COVID unit is very emotionally and physically draining,” Smith said. “If a patient needs you ASAP, you cannot get there immediately because it takes one-to-two minutes to get all the equipment on.”
For more information about COVID-19 and the safety measures used to curb its spread, visit CDC.gov.
About Reece Nations, Managing Editor
