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For Catharine Walke, an ICU nurse at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, the coronavirus pandemic has brought a number of new challenges to her profession.
“It’s unprecedented,” she said. “It truly is.”
Walke is also president and chief negotiator of the union, representing the registered nurses at El Camino Health in Mountain View and Los Gatos, Professional Resource for Nurses (PRN). The union represents about 1,300 nurses.
While El Camino’s nurses are willing and able to be there for their patients, she said, some also feel really vulnerable. Being a nurse in a hospital that recorded one of the first deaths in Santa Clara County due to COVID-19 means facing uncertainty about what the future will bring, hearing stories about what nursing colleagues are facing in areas hit hard by the coronavirus, fearing bringing the virus home to household members and witnessing firsthand how quickly patients’ health can deteriorate, she said.
One of the biggest stressors is not knowing what’s ahead. At the time of this interview, in late March, it still wasn’t clear whether the shelter-in-place order had succeeded in flattening the curve. Everyone was preparing for “the surge” – and the terrifying possibility that there might be a situation in which the virus had sickened more people than the hospital had capacity to handle.
Hospital staff members were checking their personal protective equipment supplies every 12 hours, she said, but standards for what equipment should be worn were also changing by the day.
“We have what we need today. Two weeks, a month from now? I don’t know,” she said.
Nurses, she said, are a small community, and many know other nurses across the U.S. and globe in areas that have been devastated by the coronavirus: New York City, Iran, England. Hearing about what nurses elsewhere have been dealing with added to the uncertainty they were feeling.
Then there’s the perpetual worry about bringing the virus home. Figuring out where to take off one’s shoes or change clothes to minimize risk to family members has been a new challenge.
Nurses have also had to slow down to ensure they’ve put on all of their protective gear properly and are carrying everything they need each time they enter a patient’s room.
Under normal circumstances, nurses don’t mind spending a little extra time with a patient, but now, they must minimize the amount of time they’re in the same room to reduce their risk of infection.
At the hospital, there are helpers outside the room who can bring in additional supplies if necessary. One challenge? While wearing a protective helmet, it can be hard to hear anybody talk, especially if there’s also a fan going, which can be both frustrating and comical, Walke said.
“Laughter helps,” she said. “You have to be able to laugh.”
She said she and her colleagues also try to keep their spirits up by talking about how they’re feeling and congratulating each other when a patient is discharged.
But seeing the toll of COVID-19 on patients is its own burden.
With few exceptions, visitors aren’t allowed at the hospital, and while patients are permitted to make phone and video calls, she said, not everyone has access to the technology that enables those connections. She said she recently had to help a patient maneuver a flip phone.
Patients should not hesitate to ask for what they need, she said. “The worst thing we can say to you is no. Some patients in this COVID-19 isolation, they don’t want to ask for one more thing. You have to. That’s what’s going to help you heal.”
There are some parts of the job she didn’t love so much that have also changed: there’s no traffic on her commute, and far more parking spots available than ever before. But it also feels unsettling and eerie, she said.
“We want all of our patients to survive,” she said. “But COVID-19 isn’t always cooperating with us, unfortunately.”
Find comprehensive coverage on the Midpeninsula’s response to the new coronavirus by Palo Alto Online, the Mountain View Voice and the Almanac here.