State’s front line moving forward
After getting vaccine, Danbury nurse ‘hopeful’
DANBURY — An ultrasound cannot be conducted virtually.
That’s put nurses like Anabella Rodrigues on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s made us all a little bit stronger,” said Rodrigues, the nurse manager for the Connecticut Institute for Communities’s Women’s Health Department, which continued to see patients — even those with COVID — in person throughout the pandemic. This included pregnant women with the virus.
“You still have to keep doing your job,” she added. “The patients still need to be seen.”
Rodrigues was the first staff member at the federally qualified health center in Danbury to be vaccinated with the initial dose of the coronavirus vaccine on Monday afternoon.
It’s a promise of better times for her family, too.
“We’re all just very hopeful,” said Rodrigues, tearing up.
Her father-in-law, Antonio Rodrigues, died at 78 on May 29 after battling the virus for 54 days in the ICU.
“It was a long 54 days,” she said.
She described him as a “family oriented” man who wanted to
enjoy retirement with his wife.
“He’s the biggest homebody that you could possibly ever imagine,” Rodrigues said. “So, how he got COVID is beyond us because he hadn’t gone out of the house in almost six weeks. We hadn’t seen him. And then you get that phone call. You’re just like ‘how?’”
She and her husband have been married for 24 years and have two children, Ryan, 20, and Liliana, 18, who has been been conducting registration for the COVID testing team during her college break.
“I’m praying this [vaccine] will put an end to...how we’ve been living in the world,” Rodrigues said. “Because honestly, people are just distraught over this, over and over. I’m hoping and praying this is the beginning to a more normal.”
Vaccine rollout
Forty employees were vaccinated on Monday, with the rest of eligible staff who want it expected to get their first dose on Wednesday, said Katie Curran, chief operating officer and general counsel for CIFC.
“They’re excited,” she said. “Obviously, it’s been a really difficult 10 months. It’s sort a light at the end of the tunnel, even though we still have a very long tunnel to go. But I think it hopefully gives them a sense of protection as they continue to see patients, as they’ve been doing without this.”
Across the state, 75,180 people have received their vaccines, with the second doses starting to be administered on Monday.
CIFC has roughly 400 employees, but not all are eligible for the vaccine yet, Curran said. Any extra doses of the Moderna vaccine will go toward the Danbury Health Department to vaccinate health care workers and medical first responders.
Some CIFC staff who work at Danbury Hospital were already vaccinated there, Curran said.
Blue tape was spaced six feet apart on the hallway in the Greater Danbury Community Health Center marking where the staff could stand as they waited for their vaccine.
A CIFC internal medicine nurse administered the dose. Two staff completing their residencies monitored the vaccinated for 15 minutes afterward to ensure they did not have an allergic or adverse reaction.
Seven of 10 staff members
from the Women’s Health Department were scheduled to be vaccinated on Monday.
Supporting pregnant women
The clinic is the only one in the area that accepts pregnant, uninsured women. Sometimes, women register as patients when they are 25 to 30 weeks pregnant, Rodrigues said.
“If we’re not here, what are they going to do?,” said Rodrigues, who has worked for CIFC for 10 years. They’re going to deliver a baby and not have any prenatal care.”
While some appointments could be conducted virtually, often OB/GYN services needed to be done in-person.
Rooms are sterilized, while staff speak to the patients virtually beforehand so that they are only together for five minutes, Rodrigues said. Staff see between 30 to 40 patients daily.
In some cases, women have had COVID.
“It has been a substantial amount, so it a big challenge,” Rodrigues said.
She and her co-workers wear full personal protective equipment, including gowns, when with COVID patients, who are in a designated room. That room is not used for 1 1/2 hours after the patient leaves. Another room across the hall is available for staff to remove their PPE and wash up, she said.
Rodrigues has approached the situation with a sense of pragmatism and duty.
“It’s the same thing as going into any kind of isolation room that I’ve ever been to,” said Rodrigues, who has been a nurse since 1998 and previously worked at Danbury Hospital. “The patient still needs to be taken care of. You just go in and do what you have to do.”