Health Desk: Many nurses around the world are making huge personal sacrifices to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Some have traveled from across the country to help. Others have found themselves working in departments they never practiced in before, learning new routines and protocols as they go. In many cases, they’re also working without the proper personal protective equipment (PPE) they need to ensure their own safety. Nurses say one of the most effective ways we can help them is to follow stay-at-home orders.
Luke Mayes typically works as an acute dialysis nurse at DaVita Kidney Care in Boise, Idaho. He became a nurse because he felt called to help people. And that’s precisely why, when our current global crisis hit, he left his husband and four children to travel to New York and serve on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis.
“I’m just a guy with a big heart,” Mayes told Healthline. “I truly love to use my talents and skills to help those who need it. I am fortunate enough to have a very supportive family that is making the sacrifice of holding down the fort at home, so I can assist with the massive needs across our country.”
Mayes recently posted a Facebook video sharing his experience as a nurse helping in a time of such need. It’s received over 3,000 shares and is littered with comments praising him for his honesty, his compassion, and his bravery in the face of this crisis.
But Mayes isn’t alone in the sacrifices he’s making. The truth is, nurses across the country are stepping up as the heroes we all need right now. Cedars Sinai recently shared two videos of nurses on the front line talking about their experiences.
ICU nurse Lauren Yamashita talks in her video about being inspired by her fellow nurses who continue to show up every day, expressing a willingness to work extra hours and help in whatever ways they can. And Irine Quintas talks about the little ways nurses are working to provide comfort and connection to their COVID-19 patients.
For many of these nurses, the day-to-day of their jobs has changed significantly. Some have traveled from across the country to help. Others have found themselves working in departments they never practiced in before, learning new routines and protocols as they go.
“Ten thousand people have died here in New York,” said Louise Weadock, a 40-year nurse with a master’s in public health. “I’m right in the heart of it. This was like a Titanic that hit us.”
Weadock is the founder of Access Nursing Services and the COVID Care Force, which she has been using to deploy nurses from all around the country to the areas being hardest hit by COVID-19.
She has experience in this realm, as she served a similar function at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.
“Everything in nursing is about getting someone to their next moment,” Weadock said. “Nursing really is all about adapting, and I don’t care where you are in nursing, you’re just trying to get people to that next moment.”
Weadock shared a personal story about a fellow nurse who called her crying one night, talking about how she tries to be with all of her patients as they’re dying.
“She said ‘You can’t just let someone die alone, I always try to hold on to my patients,’” Weadock said. “But when you have 20 separate overlapping COVID deaths in a 12-hour shift, you can’t always hold on to them all.”
Weadock said she was in tears during that phone call, and it was why she decided to start the COVID Couch — a weekly video meeting that nurses can join to talk about what they’re experiencing and to remember they’re not alone in it. Of the nurses she’s helped deploy, Weadock said those willing to go and help where that help is needed most right now are a truly special bunch.
“A lot of them have to change their living arrangements, even if they already live here,” she said. “They feel like they have to leave their families to keep them safe. So nurses will get together and stay together.”
She explained that many of the hospitals are providing housing and hotels like The Four Seasons are offering rooms for free as well.
“So, you know, people are staying in town,” Weadock said. “They’re not going home to infect their little kids.”
She explained that for many of these nurses, whether they’re retired army nurses or what she describes as “gun slinging travel nurses,” this was the wave they’ve been waiting for — the crisis they feel they were born to help get people through.
But even for them, the crisis has been overwhelming. Especially as they’ve watched their own die.
“One of my home care nurses was one of the first 50 to die in New York,” she said. “And I was on the phone with another of my nurses recently who was talking about her.
