Two members of the Ascension Via Christi Hospital medical staff who traveled to COVID-19 hot spots in May to care for patients joined KMAN’s In Focus last week to reflect on their experiences.
Brooklyn Stoddard, a CNA, worked at a rehabilitation nursing facility in a town about 30 miles southwest of Chicago called Joliet.
According to Stoddard, about 90 percent of the staff at the nursing facility were out sick with COVID-19.
“A lot of them had worked up to 28 days in a row,” Stoddard said. “We were there to help them have some days off so they could come back and be better.”
Jessica Wolfe, an RN who worked at a hospital in Chicago, was often tasked with caring for multiple patients at once.
“We would take care of maybe four to five COVID-19 patients or PUIs (Person Under Investigation) at a time,” Wolfe said. “And then the hardest part is just gowning up and de-gowning and everything for every single patient. It takes a lot of time.”
In addition to the stress of working long days, which came in the form of 12 to 13-hour shifts, Stoddard and Wolfe also had to work in an unfamiliar environment.
Wolfe found that many of parts of her job, from the charting systems in use to the medicine being given, were different from what she was used to.
“You just kind of have to go with the flow and that’s kind of what we’ve done here,” Wolfe said. “I mean, the rules always change. They’ve been doing it awhile up there, so they have a little bit of a system, and it’s still kind of just chaotic. You just have to stay open minded. We didn’t get much training prior.”
Despite these challenges, Stoddard and Wolfe were being cheered on from afar by those back home.
“It was really kind of exciting, just knowing that that’s truly what you want to see in a nurse,” Annette Conrow, the Acute Care Service Director at Ascension Via Christi Hospital, said. “There are those that are willing to go wherever needed to do that help. It’s really just that personality of a nurse of we’re here to help and wherever we’re needed, we’re ready.”
According to the City of Chicago website, about 49,600 positive cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Chicago as of June 14.
