Reports from the Front Line
During the COVID-19 Crisis
SHARE members are responding to COVID-19 as true heroes. For a long time, the mounting pressures in healthcare have made it increasingly difficult to provide the highest quality patient care. Now, adapting to the oncoming coronavirus surge has only amplified the challenges.
At the same time, we’re seeing inspiring displays of teamwork, innovation, and compassion throughout our hospital. Here, we’ve asked SHARE member Prestine Frazier, Executive Board member Joel Masley ,and long-time SHARE Rep Kona Enders how things are going for them, and what things look like from their perspective.
Joel Masley
Respiratory TherapIst, University Campus, 3/31/20
Joel Masley
Things are busy! In addition to taking care of patients, I’ve been helping get our department’s equipment ready for the surge. I’ve been working a lot with our new equipment tech, Michael. He’s awesome. It’s his second week, we’re really lucky we got him. We’re staging different parts, vent tubes, stuff to tie tubes, neb bags, stuff like that. And we’re working on standardizing all our carts in all the different locations where we’re setting up so that they can be used by everyone the same way. We did a video for critical care nurses to watch on vents, nebs, put a cleaning module together for our people. We redid a BiPap machine so it can work as a vent, and hooked up a vent that can work on two people at once. We put those downstairs so people can play around with them now and see how they work. We’re doing everything we can to get ready for whatever’s coming.
The last couple of weeks have been mentally and physically tiring, but the teamwork has really been exceptional between all the different roles, everyone is overlapping and helping each other. Everyone’s preparing for the worst case scenario, but really for the most part people are gelling together. And people are working hard to keep things cheery, too – for the most part people are being really good and generous with each other. I love the stuff coming in from outside, from people saying thank you. Like today Dunkin brought some stuff in for us, that was great. It feels like everyone’s pulling together to get the job done and take care of each other, you know?
EBS has been so good, they’re wiping everything down, doing such a thorough job. They are the real unsung heroes – they are an integral part of keeping us all safe and healthy. So there’s a whole team of people coming together to accomplish things, getting things done, that’s kind of neat.
People are nervous about protective gear, about how many vents we’re going to do. They’re looking at New York, and waiting for the surge is hard – the next two weeks will be the telltale. But it’s not all doom and gloom, we’re really helping people. People think getting on a vent is a death sentence, but it’s not. One person just got extubated today. We’re seeing people get better now, so that’s a really good feeling, encouraging for what’s coming.
The reassigned staff seem like the ones who are most nervous right now, because they’re not sure what it will be like. We’ve got like 7 therapists coming up from the pulmonary lab. Or nurses from the clinics.
The most memorable moment for me from the last couple weeks was watching someone who was getting ruled out, and his wife couldn’t stay with him, she was extremely upset and wanted to be with him, that was tough, kind of an awakening for me. How would I feel in her position? That stuck out for me.
Prestine Frazier
Medical Admin Secretary, Employee Health Clinic, 3/31/20
We are straight-out busy. It's been a journey trying to get things in order, but it's coming along. They have put some processes in place like a phone tree and the COVID call-center on Front Street: nurses triage calls from there, and Doctors are also there to help. Everyone has pulled together and we are working as a Team. An admin from another dept I had volunteered to help with Data Entry. Everyone has jumped in to help!
Kona Enders
PCA2, University Campus, 3/31/20
Kona Enders with SHARE Staff Organizer Will Erickson
We are working so differently than we were. A lot of people were afraid because there wasn’t a lot of notice that we were moving to another unit [Kona and the other staff in her area were recently transferred to 3 Lakeside Short Stay]. It was really hard at first because we are working so differently. It was hard on the nurses and the PCAs. The doctors and everyone keep saying that we have to decrease the foot traffic in the rooms. It is hard because we can’t have the conversations with the patients like we always did and spend time with them. I was kind of dancing around outside one of the doors to a patient being a little silly and the patient said, ‘That just made my day!’
We feel very supported. Maggie the NP who works with Dr. Myers, will bring us food or snacks. Or we get things from other floors. They are thinking of us. Cardiac Surgery always checks on us.
One of the greatest tools that was implemented was when you are logged onto the computer it will say whatever any patient, or nurse, or PCA or MD needs right across the screen. So who ever has a computer in front of them can help that person in the patient’s room. It really feels like more teamwork!
