Healthcare Heroes
Answering the call
BY SARAH KITTLE
No one can dispute the amount of gratitude and appreciation that should be heaped on our healthcare workers in these, our Corona Days. As a large percentage of the population grapples with the challenges of being unemployed or working from home, overseeing their children’s education, maintaining remote connections with family and friends as well as planning their own meals and finding creative ways to relieve boredom, many of our healthcare workers are balancing life at home with battling this disease on the front lines. That’s if they’re even going home – a lot of professionals in the industry are staying elsewhere so as to keep their families safe from the dangers they might inadvertently bring home to their families.
How disheartening it must be to see colleagues falling ill, and some of them dying, while many Americans are still protesting containment measures and calling the pandemic crisis a hoax. Ever since the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Michigan in early March, our healthcare workers have been front and center in this war against an invisible killer that strikes quickly and without mercy.
Even as the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted what’s wrong with our national healthcare system, it has also highlighted what is right – the people. In times of great crisis, it is those with a heart to serve who inspire our healthcare industry to rise to the challenge of taming a deadly and highly contagious new virus that is unpredictable and, to date, without a cure. Trained personnel from many hospitals across the U.S. have been co-opted to care for COVID-19 patients and for many this may be their first time dealing with cases that could be terminal, let alone part of a worldwide pandemic.
Although this disease strikes the elderly and the immuno-compromised particularly hard, it has prematurely ended the lives of normal, healthy young people too. We don’t know enough about this novel coronavirus yet to understand why one person infected with it can’t breathe without pain, and another is walking around with no symptoms at all. High fever, sore throat and a cough? Those symptoms manifest for a myriad of illnesses and people who aren’t normally hypochondriacs are reacting with panic and fear. Face masks and protective gloves are the latest in responsible fashion accessories - don’t leave home without them.
We know that many Chaldeans have a heart for healing but had no idea how many had chosen the medical field as their profession. When we asked the Chaldean Chamber of Commerce to put out a request for information about healthcare heroes in our community, we were overwhelmed by the response. More than half of the submissions were sent in by family members and friends bursting with pride for the contributions being made by their own healthcare heroes.
We contacted some out-of-state submissions and asked them about preparedness and access to crucial equipment in their areas. Michael Atisha, RN, BSN, is Director of Nursing for the Mount Sinai Medical Center Emergency Department in Miami, Florida. He says he is so proud to be a nurse right now and feels blessed to be able to care for the vulnerable and those in need.
Atisha believes that his area of Florida was ready; conservative in its approach and effective at social distancing. “South Beach is a huge hotspot for tourism and international traveling but this was all halted, making it a ghost town.” He added that it was, “shocking to see not one person on the sand, at the beaches, or in swimming pools” this spring break season.
Atisha said that even though his hospital was prepared and was given the proper equipment, that’s not been the case across the board. He feels lucky to be where he is and to have the loving support of his family. One message Atisha says he would like CN to pass on to its readers is: “Please stay home, at least until the strictures have been lifted. It’s our best defense.”
A little further north we connected with Patrick Atisha, a doctor of internal medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois; a state hit particularly hard by the pandemic. Dr. Atisha reports that his hospital leadership and staff did an excellent job of preparing their facilities and adjusting their work schedules to accommodate a local outbreak. However, nothing can adequately prepare one mentally for the reality of Covid-19, he added.
“Within the first couple of weeks of caring for COVID-19 patients, a level of anxiety accompanied being at the hospital,” Dr. Atisha recalls. “At that time, little was known about the virus and the nation was facing a scarcity of personal protective equipment which made the work environment feel frantic.”
Fortunately, Dr. Atisha’s facility had enough protective gear and, at the time of this writing, had yet to reach maximum capacity. Other hospitals have not been that lucky.
Everyone within the medical profession feels a kinship in crisis, a “we’re all in this together” mentality, but some have a much better idea of what “this” is than others. Dr. Atisha points out that, “As a physician, it’s easy for me to limit the direct contact I have with my coronavirus patients. I want to recognize the amazing efforts of the nurses, respiratory therapists, and the CNAs who risk their lives to care for these patients. They are the true heroes.”
On the West Coast, James Elia, D.O., is Assistant Medical Director at the Sharp Grossmont Hospital Emergency Department in La Mesa, California, the largest healthcare facility in East San Diego County. He says California started social distancing and staying at home early, which seems to have done its job in “flattening the curve” in the Golden State. Even so, Dr. Elia says that the shortage of personal protective equipment that has plagued the country has impacted them as well.
In spite of dealing with daily concerns about the ongoing supply shortages, Dr. Elia says that he still feels relatively safe. However, “I would be remiss if I said we felt completely safe regardless of all the protection we have, given that we are dealing with a deadly virus that is sitting directly in front of us,” he added.
Dr. Elia agrees with experts across the field who say that the best way to combat this virus is to stay home. “We must continue to social distance and be aware of when to slowly open our country as the virus declines. It would be tragic if we allow the virus to reemerge.”
