CAREGIVERS, KIN celebrate patient’s release.
The excitement was palpable as family members of Anna McClure gathered Wednesday in the parking lot of Saline Memorial Hospital in Benton.
McClure, who is in her 70s, had spent more than 40 days in the medical facility being treated for covid-19. That included spending about two weeks on a ventilator. At one point, caregivers gave her family members the opportunity to say goodbye through a window before they removed McClure’s breathing tube.
McClure pulled through, though, and Wednesday she received the “red carpet treatment” as she exited the hospital with the help of a wheelchair and a walker, and into the arms of family members who were waiting with balloons and signs.
The gospel tune “Oh Happy Day” played over speakers amid cheers and applause, and McClure waved as she held an orange arrow-shaped sign that read “I’m outta here!” Cloth masks partially covered tearful faces as her two daughters rushed to give her a hug.
For her family, it marked the end of a long separation from a beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. It also gave them an opportunity to thank the hospital workers who cared for her during an unpredictable illness.
McClure was admitted to the hospital March 30. She was experiencing shortness of breath and was put on a ventilator, said Dr. Ahmad Yousaf, hospitalist and medical intensive care unit director at Saline Memorial.
Candace McCown, one of McClure’s granddaughters, said it was difficult to watch as her grandmother’s illness progress.
“The hardest part of this was just like the up and down
of it because one day you feel so encouraged and so uplifted, and the very next it was like bad news again,” McCown said. “I think that’s been the most difficult part, the emotional toll that it takes.”
The ups and downs affected the medical workers, as well. Yousaf said he and others who helped take care of McClure lost sleep thinking about her. That happens with many patients, he said, but the stress is worse with a covid-19 case.
Even though the hospital staff had set up a tripod in her room so family members could video chat with her whenever they wanted, McClure, like other covid-19 patients, was denied the comfort of their in-person contact.
As a result, she developed a family-like connection with the doctors, nurses, respiratory therapy team and administrators who worked together to care for her, Yousaf said. That, in turn, brought the hospital’s team closer together.
“It only solidified that bond between us, and seeing her walk out today really felt like a coming together of that team’s success,” he said. “Doctors get the credit because we have those titles, but truly the eyes and ears and all the stuff that happens in the background is everybody else, and nothing happens without those teams working together.”
Yousaf said treating covid-19 patients is a unique challenge, and McClure’s recovery is a victory for the whole Saline Memorial community.
Hospitals across the state and nation are celebrating similar recoveries with sendoffs that give health care workers causes to celebrate at a time when coronavirus cases top 4,400 in Arkansas and 1,460,000 nationwide.
At least 3,472 Arkansans had recovered from covid-19 as of 6 p.m. Saturday, according to Arkansas Department of Health numbers, and at least 261,079 nationwide have recovered from the illness.
St. Bernards Medical Center
in Jonesboro threw a farewell party April 22 for a recovered patient there. In a video, the patient is seen waving to cheering hospital staffers while being wheeled along a hospital hallway, with balloons in the shapes of a sun and a rainbow tied to the gurney.
“She had spent time on a ventilator, and our entire hospital was ecstatic to see her make a recovery,” St. Bernards spokesman Mitchell Nail said in an email Friday.
Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pine Bluff announced April 24 on Facebook that the state’s first known covid-19 patient had been discharged from its facility that evening and was expected to make a full recovery after 49 days of hospitalization.
A later post included a video of the patient being wheeled out of the hospital as medical workers lined up to cheer him on.
“This is the payoff for our hard work,” Dr. Ali Al-Nashif, a pulmonary and critical care physician at Jefferson Regional Medical Center, says in the video. “I mean, this is the hope for us for every patient with this disease, and for the whole community and the country, that hopefully we will have recovery, more and more of these patients.”