To save the lives of many from COVID-19, health workers risked their health during the quarantine. There are a wide variety of healthcare workers besides doctors and nurses who worked during the quarantine.
Grand View Hospital physical therapist Cathy Gordon has been working during the quarantine. Gordon has for 33 years as a physical therapist, and for 23 of those years, she was working at Grand View Hospital.
TriValley Primary Care physician Heather Hart has been working in healthcare for 22 years. She worked during all of the quarantine. According to Hart, TriValley Primary Care “never closed their doors.”
Most hospitals are being very cautious with the spread of COVID-19. Grand View Hospital is taking many precautions. The precautions for dealing with positive and negative COVID-19 patients are different.
For patients who were negative, they would “have to wear a mask if we go into a patient’s home. The patient also has to wear a mask. If we are in contact with any fluids, we would have gloves on,” Gordon said.
For patients who tested positive had to be more cautious. “We have to have on a mask and a gown. The mask is a double mask called an N95. We also wear gloves,” Gordon said.
The precautions are slightly different at TriValley Primary Care. “For staff, we are all taking our temperature every day and if it is above 100, we pretty much are testing ourselves to make sure we are negative for COVID-19,” Hart said.
TriValley Primary Care also has a thermoscan thermometer that they use for everyone who comes into the office. All staff must wear an N95 face mask and be six feet apart.
Both of these healthcare centers provide all of the personal protective equipment.
It was difficult for these health workers to continue going to work. “I work full time, but I guess if I said I didn’t feel comfortable I could have taken a leave,” Gordon said.
This is how it was at Trivalley Primary Care, as well.
“The most stressful part of working during COVID for me was not being able to meet with the patients and their families. There were no visitors,” Grand View nurse Lauren Constanzer said.
Constanzer was worried about “getting COVID and bringing it home to [her] family.”
Hart was focused on stress and not knowing what was going to happen.
For Gordon, she is very worried about her kids.
“It was extremely stressful because everyone else stayed. I have two kids in high school who are doing everything at home. I have a son home from college who couldn’t return and my husband is working from home,” Gordon said.
Even though it was stressful for all three of these health workers, they decided to work throughout the quarantine.
Choosing to work didn’t only affect them. Upon arrival at home, they also took off their shoes and took a shower. After, they washed their clothes.
“It was hard to leave [my family] every day not knowing what I was walking into,” Gordon said.