Answering the coronavirus call, Idaho nurses travel across U.S. to ‘help now’
Jessica Schneider returned to Idaho late last year after working as a nurse in South Carolina for almost seven years, and she accepted a position at St. Luke’s just as the coronavirus began hitting the United States.
Rather than go through three months of mandatory training before she could be of help, Schneider wanted to go to work immediately, someplace where COVID-19 cases were already beginning to overwhelm the health care system.
“As a nurse, it doesn’t matter how many years of experience you have, you have to train for three months (in a new permanent job), and they were trying to figure out a way to shorten out the training so I could help during this crisis,” Schneider said. “Being highly skilled, me training for three months is not the right thing to do during a pandemic, and my boss agreed.”
So in March, Schneider said she put in to travel to either New York City or Washington state, the two big hot spots at the time, and New York called almost immediately. Gov. Andrew Cuomo had issued a plea for health care professionals from around the country to “come help New York now” — and since March 30, that’s exactly what Schneider has been doing, after going through a very brief orientation.
“Ninety-nine percent of the time my patients are all COVID-19 patients,” said Schneider, who is working at a NYC Health + Hospitals facility in Harlem. “It’s a lot of working with respiratory therapists and just trying to maintain the patient’s overall composition, or get them better, or make them as comfortable as you can for them to pass over.”
Schneider explained that this has been a very different work experience. The hospital lacks a sufficient number of machines to keep track of a patient’s vitals, and also has been short on hospital rooms and even beds. New York City has had more than 127,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 9,000 deaths.
“It’s learning how to do your best with less,” Schneider said. “In my career, I have had people who have passed, but very few, and it is now a daily occurrence on the floors.”
Schneider explained that since families and friends are not allowed in, they will connect patients to their loved ones via an iPad — the virtual communication that has become ubiquitous during this era of stay-home orders.
“You have somebody dying and you are so busy that you just want to make sure you can be in a room with them so you can make sure they are not dying all by themselves,” Schneider said. “And that’s horrible, because as Americans, you would just never imagine that would be OK.”
Saint Al’s sends nurses to Michigan, California
Seven critical care nurses from Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center were sent to coronavirus hot spots to help.
Three nurses were sent to a hospital in Fresno, California, while pairs of nurses were sent to Michigan hospitals in Oakland and Livonia, according to a news release from Saint Al’s. The seven nurses are expected to be away until at least May.
“The critical care pool reached out to see if anyone would be interested in temporary re-employment. I volunteered to go,” said Olivia Cordes, who is working at St. Agnes Medical Center in Fresno. “Hearing of somewhere else where they were in need of nurses who had the capabilities that I have, I thought it was a unique opportunity to come here and alleviate the burden that they are experiencing.”
Nurse Devan Hromcik is working nights at St. Joseph Mercy in Oakland. She said she felt compelled to help when the call came.
“It’s nice that I get to relieve some of the nurses here that might be feeling overwhelmed or like they need a day off or break, so we can preserve high-quality nursing care,” Hromcik said.
“The biggest thing I’ve taken from being in a population with a high case of this virus is there’s a lot of pressure on people to be flexible, so just be kind and help one another.”
Support for health care professionals
Schneider said that “it’s hard to put into words when you are surrounded by death,” but noted that she is grateful for the outpouring of support that has come from families and friends of patients and staff members at the Harlem hospital.
“We have a nurse on the floor whose friend lives in Miami and wanted to say thank you to all of us ... and he Venmo-ed him 100 bucks and bought us pizza. And I couldn’t get over that. This guy doesn’t know who we are,” Schneider said.
A granddaughter of a New York City patient came in with a bunch of Dunkin’ Donuts, as well as hot chocolate and coffee.
“I can’t imagine that they have very much money, but it was just to say thank you for everything we are doing,” Schneider said.
Schneider said she will return to Boise after July 4 to start her three months of training at St. Luke’s. The Saint Al’s nurses who went to California and Michigan are expected to work there until at least mid-May.
