STAFFERS REFLECT ON PROGRESS MADE IN FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19
Hospital CEO points to 18,000 vaccinations, significant work in South County
SANTA CRUZ >> Staff members used to working overtime are taking advantage of a day off. Elective surgeries are taking place at a steady pace. The number of COVID-19 patients in the health center is in the single digits.
Life at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz feels a bit as it did one year ago when the concept of the health crisis was largely undefined. While the people who gave their all to keep the facility running are wary of what the coming months hold, sharing Santa Cruz County Health Officer Dr. Gail Newel’s recently described feeling of “contagious optimism.”
“We have reason to be hopeful, as we are seeing a very significant uptick in vaccinations and people coming forward to get the vaccine as well as to give it,” said Dominican Hospital president and CEO Dr. Nanette Mickiewicz. “We’ve done nearly 18,000 vaccinations in our own little hospital and a significant amount of work in South County … but we can’t let our guards down.”
Martin Kirch, the director of Respiratory Therapy & Radiology at the hospital, said that his team has been following county trends closely. ICU volumes are much more modest than they were just a few short months ago. However, the public should know that respiratory therapists are still seeing very sick patients.
“It’s been a constant reminder for staff, as we’ve seen the increase in staff vaccinated, that we can’t be lackadaisical in terms of protecting ourselves and our families,” the 20-plus year respiratory therapy veteran said. “I think we will continue to see an elevated baseline of these very sick patients … I don’t think this will go away.”
For nurse Maria Villalta, a constant reminder of the ongoing realities of the pandemic comes from the testing done for most patients in the hospital twice a week, a routine move done to protect everyone on the premises. Even with transmission dropping, going back to the old way of doing things is tough to do when coronavirus scares are still fresh in the mind of nurses like her.
“We’ve adopted the new norm quite well,” Villalta said, referencing all of the additional personal protective equipment staff in her and other similar departments wear. “When it’s just a mask and a face shield versus CAPR (specialized hat helmet respirators) and the gown and everything, it’s a little odd. It’s welcomed, but a little odd.”
Moving forward
The medical professionals will ease back into society after a year that tested their every limit.
Villalta, a 15-year employee of Dominican Hospital, will take her kids to San Francisco Giants games, an experience that will bring smiles rather than tears she recounted more than one long day of filling her CAPR with water in the last 12 months.
Kirch will be able to relax when he has the opportunity for someone to cover a shift, rather than the anxiety that came with watching even young people such as himself get deathly ill from a virus with so many unknowns.
Mickiewicz will enjoy the thank you cards and posters that have been posted or raised across the community rather than worry about contacting other hospitals in the health care group to obtain muchneeded ventilators during a surge. Kirch said at one point during the holidays 20 patients were on ventilators at once; in a normal flu season, he sees eight to 12 ventilators in the ICU.
Villalta, Kirch and Mickiewicz all credit their colleagues for their survival.
“We have a very supportive leadership team here at Dominican, one I feel prepared all of us to be able to stand in and provide support for various departments,” Kirch said.
“We didn’t have any help in the rooms going to work with these patients so the nurses were dietary staff, housekeeping, PT, respiratory, every aspect the patient needed,” Villalta said. “We got along so well from the get-go … in this crisis you can see your teammates and they know you’re drowning, when you need help usually before you do.”
“I’m so incredibly proud of the people who did step up, work extra hours and came back after resting for a little bit and did more,” Mickiewicz said. “It’s just a testament to how great our staff is and how dedicated they are to wanting to take care of the community.”
Outlets for that stress, made possible by the lessening of restrictions around shifting down in the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy, have been missed. Villalta said her team used to go to dinner once or twice a month, or go up to the Chaminade restaurant to “blow off some steam.”
“Some of the nurses would go paddleboarding on the weekend or the day off,” she said, adding that she missed opportunities outside of work to build on the camaraderie. “Those things are important. They make our lives easier.”
Those restorative moments will come in handy as medical staff treats the remaining COVID-19 patients in the hospital, individuals who need more care than most. The option of virtual visits on iPads are still viable, for example, for those who can’t be with family. In one case, Villalta scoured the hospital for as many iPads as she could find and set up eight or nine around the bed of a man on his way to hospice.
“I surrounded his bed with his children all at the same time,” she said. “I don’t know how long they lived but they got to see him when they couldn’t travel. Those kinds of things are invaluable.”
Some of the ways departments like Kirch’s operated changed entirely, largely due to the intuitive work of radiologists and those in the patient transportation and imaging departments. More is known now about the best ways to treat the novel coronavirus, which can lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome or wet lung, such as high-flow oxygen and proning practices.
Even Mickiewicz, an infectious disease physician by training, said that she and her nursing team were learning as they went along. Having daily tactic meetings with leadership, members of the front line and union representation was the secret to solid adjustments in care for patients as time progressed, she said.
“We are 80 years in this community in September, and I have to say we are 80 years strong because of the doctors, nurses, all of our staff working together,” the hospital leader said. “We always do well in times of crisis, but this crisis has been more than any of us expected.”
Today, staff members are electing to spend their extra time vaccinating members of the community because it gives them hope. They were there on Dec. 17, when vaccinations of the hospital’s own professionals began and continue to be there because they are so focused on ending the pandemic, Mickiewicz said.
“We were down at the fairgrounds over the weekend and one of the physicians said, ‘It feels so good to be vaccinating (people),’” she recalled. “‘It’s the best part of my day.’”