STILLWATER, Okla. (KFOR) – Nurses at Stillwater Medical Middle spoke to KFOR about what it is like at this level within the pandemic.
“Issues are tough. The whole lot’s type of ramping up once more, and it is deliver again a number of feelings, stress, anxiousness,” ICU nurse Abby Snow mentioned. “It is nearly like a PTSD response, simply type of not figuring out
how dangerous is it going to get.”
She says it is mentally and bodily exhausting.
“We’re common individuals. We now have households, however we’re nurses. That is our job. So we come to work
and we spend all of our day and all of our psychological capability and our bodily capability attempting to alter somebody’s life and save somebody’s life and ship that individual again to their household,” she mentioned.
There are ten beds in Stillwater Medical Middle’s ICU, however due to a nursing scarcity, it is laborious to workers all of the beds.
Whereas staffed mattress capability is consistently altering, some sufferers are held within the ER till area is out there.
“It is watching individuals battle to breathe daily. It is watching my workers battle to search out one of the simplest ways to look after individuals. It is watching them battle to maintain coming again to work daily and know that we will be doing the identical factor again and again with watching individuals battle to breathe,” Mary Beth Hunziker, ICU director, mentioned.
Be mindful there are non-COVID sufferers who want the ICU too.
“I am afraid. I am afraid that our unit will fill with all COVID sufferers and people who want vital care will not have anyplace to go,” Hunziker mentioned.
She says most COVID sufferers within the ICU are unvaccinated.
“If individuals do not get up and take it significantly and put the politics or the misinformation or no matter it’s apart, I am afraid lots of people that should not die are going to die,” she mentioned.
She says individuals getting vaccinated would imply lots to the workers.
“We have had individuals deliver meals, individuals ship pizza, they ship cookies, whereas all that stuff is very nice,
and we’re very very grateful for it, if we had those who began messaging us or sending us notes to say, ‘hey, I received my vaccine. My neighbor received a vaccine,’ that will be a lot extra impactful.”
