"No one wants to believe this is happening in their own backyard but it is and it isn’t pretty. In this moment, I felt defeated because I already knew what the outcome would be even though it hadn’t happened yet.”
– Carol Williams, nurse
At this week's city council committee meeting in Aurora, Illinois, Mayor Richard Irvin read the powerful message posted to Facebook Saturday by intensive care unit nurse Carol Williams.
Williams' message included the following:
"The inability to save a patient despite doing everything you can is mentally exhausting. Now imagine doing that on repeat for eight months and counting. Imagine watching a patient suffocating through a door while scrambling to get your PPE on because they inadvertently removed the mask they desperately need to breathe but you still need to protect yourself first.
"Imagine being the nurse and doctor telling a patient we need to put them on the ventilator because we have exhausted all other measures. Imagine being the nurse or doctor holding that same patient’s hand and stroking their head weeks later while their ventilator is removed because they haven’t improved and their family then says 'goodbyes' and 'I love yous' over FaceTime while they take their last breath."
"The breathlessness, pain, fear, loneliness, isolation, anxiety, hopelessness and sadness. The need to use all your energy just to breathe. The true realization you may not get better and facing your own mortality.
"Stop kidding yourself that this isn’t going to affect you or someone you love or know, it will. Stop thinking that only unhealthy people with preexisting medical conditions or elderly people are the ones dying, they aren’t the only ones.
"Please do not discount all the lives lost or affected by this pandemic any longer. We need to come together as a country, NOW. We need to work together, NOW.”
(Emily Shapiro. “'Imagine watching a patient suffocating': ICU nurse's powerful message.” ABC News. November 20, 2020.)
Williams, whose unfiltered post has gone viral on Facebook, is one of many healthcare workers sounding the alarm during the latest surge of the virus. The post included a photo of Williams, lines from PPE still indented in her face, which she said showed her "after spending five hours inside a Covid positive ICU room working to save a patient."
Williams pleads …
“ Just stop ...
“Stop thinking this is just like the flu, it isn't .
“Stop telling me the
survival rate so it's not a big deal, it is a big deal.
“Stop saying healthcare workers signed up for this, we didn't.
“Stop ignoring science based recommendations of masking, social distancing, hand hygiene, and not gathering in large crowds, they work.
“Stop kidding yourself that this isn't going to affect you or someone you love or know, it will.
“Stop thinking that only unhealthy people with preexisting medical conditions or elderly people are the ones dying, they aren't the only ones.
“Stop being confident that if you get sick from anything, the resources to save you will be readily available, that may not be in this stage of the pandemic.
“Stop believing hospitals aren't being overrun because of the massive influx of Covid patients at this moment, they are.
“Stop thinking if they make makeshift areas to house more patients there will be properly trained staff to care for them, there may not be.
“Stop believing that all frontline healthcare workers are properly protected with PPE, many across the country STILL are not.
“Stop ignoring that healthcare workers are also getting sick themselves, it's happening.
“Stop believing that doctors are profiting from this pandemic, they aren't.
“Stop politicizing this virus, it's a public health crisis
“If you are taking this pandemic seriously, doing the best you can to be safe and protect others, THANK YOU.
“If you are not, please start now. I am begging you!”
The novel coronavirus outbreak threatens to exacerbate work-related stress among certain healthcare workers and to amplify their psychological suffering. Research on the mental effects of other pandemics on medical personnel has demonstrated that distress is not limited to the duration of the outbreak but instead persists long after exposure to victims has ceased. While healthcare workers are often resilient, they are human and need the same psychological support that others do in times of turmoil – not only help now, but also in the weeks, months, and even years to come.
A new Yale School of Public Health study found that the coronavirus pandemic has taken an extreme psychological toll on health care workers across the country — and for many the effects could be long lasting.
In the study, recently published in PLOS One, researchers polled workers at 25 medical centers across the United States in an effort to gauge the pandemic’s early impacts on health care workers. What they found was shocking: Of the 1,132 people who responded to the survey last May, almost a quarter had probable post-traumatic stress disorder, and nearly 43% reported probable alcohol-use disorder.
(Matt Kristofferson. “For Many Frontline Health Workers, COVID-19 Comes with an Emotional Toll.” Yale School of Medicine. November 11, 2020.)
“If we had a better pandemic response, if we had a national government that wasn't spreading misinformation, then that would not only improve public health, but it would also really help the frontline workers who are dealing with the pandemic — emotionally and psychologically.”
– Rachel Hennein, who led the Yale study
Roy Perlis, MD, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, says the COVID‐19 pandemic is akin to what people might experience during prolonged war or refugee crises. “There's this chronic period of elevated stress that's punctuated by acute exacerbations,” he says. “In general, we're much better at telling ourselves, ‘I can get through this,’ if we know when it's going to end.” But the endpoint for COVID‐19 has remained frustratingly murky.
(Bryn Nelson PhD and David B. Kaminsky MD, FIAC. “COVID‐19's crushing mental health toll on health care workers.” ACS Journals. September 04, 2020.)
Of course, it's not only psychological damage that threatens these health workers. Many are dying.
In some states, medical personnel account for as many as 20% of known coronavirus cases. “Lost on the Frontline,” a collaboration between Kaiser Health Network and The Guardian, has identified 1,396 such workers who likely died of COVID-19 after helping patients during the pandemic. (These are U.S. healthcare worker deaths under investigation by The Guardian and KHN.)
(“Lost on the frontline.” Interactive. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2020/aug/11/lost-on-the-frontline-covid-19-coronavirus-us-healthcare-workers-deaths-database.)
Carol Williams' poignant, heartbreaking plea amplifies the real toll that COVID-19 takes on front-line health workers. It is a testimony that speaks for itself. We all should read her words and better comprehend the work and the sacrifice of healthcare workers – they are true American heroes. Their hardships are unimaginable. However, Williams' words have put us all in her shoes at the front lines – her pleas serve to open our eyes and to guide our actions.
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