By Alexander Stockton Video Journalist, Opinion |
Half a million people in this country have died from Covid-19 — many in hospitals, away from their families. But they did not die alone. Nurses were often by their side, holding their patients' hands. |
On Wednesday, the video journalist Lucy King and I published a short film called "Death, Through a Nurse's Eyes." We asked two nurses in a Covid I.C.U. in Phoenix to wear cameras during their hospital shifts, offering a firsthand perspective of the brutality of caring for Covid patients. What we found was that, beneath all their layers of P.P.E., nurses are struggling to cope. |
In January, the month we filmed, Arizona had the highest per capita case rate in the world. On my first day there, Sara Reynolds, a nurse in charge of a Covid I.C.U., stepped out to speak to me and immediately burst into tears. She and her staff were stretched to the limit, with so many patients on death's door. |
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In a related Op-Ed published today, Theresa Brown, a nurse and author, talks about how nurses are past the point of burnout. Many are now suffering from "moral injury," a term typically used for combat veterans traumatized from experiencing or doing something that goes against their values. |
This is exactly what I witnessed in Phoenix. No one is supposed to see as much death as nurses have seen during this pandemic. |
At the I.C.U. in Arizona, Sara couldn't bear to throw away the EKG printout of a patient she'd lost the week before. Tracing the squiggles on the long sheet of paper, she could identify when the patient's heartbeat stopped by where the line went flat. She told me the patient's children had been on the phone saying goodbye in his last moments. But the squiggles stopped before the patient's wife had a chance to say anything. Then, as she started to speak to him, the squiggles briefly started again. So Sara marked his time of death as after the patient's wife said goodbye. |
This is how much these nurses care. They grieve every single one of their patients and will continue to bear the burden of these losses, even after the pandemic is over. |
The country needs to move beyond gratitude and toward action. Nurses were overworked, underpaid and stretched thin even before the pandemic. The past year's deluge of patients has only compounded these problems. Brown's Op-Ed outlines policy changes to address many of them — from guaranteeing mental health services to making nursing school more affordable. |
Nursing is Sara's dream job; it's what she's always wanted to do. But the pandemic has made her question her career choice. That is a travesty. Our country cannot afford to lose heroes like her. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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