‘I feel like I’m doing something for them’
Nurse comes out of retirement to help co-workers manage surge of COVID-19
Even during a global pandemic, when nurse Susan Parker retired in June, it was always her plan to return to work.
“I think once you’re a nurse, you’re always a nurse,” said Parker, 62, of Schererville.
Before COVID-19, her retirement had been set. Since August, she has worked two days per month as needed, helping to fill in shifts at Franciscan Health Dyer.
Aside from the patients, a little extra money, a big motivator is to be there for her “girls” on her hospital floor, many co-workers who are like a “second family” she’s known for years, working grueling shifts under increased pressure.
“I have the utmost respect for what they’re doing,” she said.
The state’s District 1, which includes, Lake, Porter, LaPorte, Newton and Jasper counties, reported 543 hospitalizations Friday, with only 23.7% ICU beds open, 36.3% in use by COVID-19 patients, according to the state.
In Indiana, only 21.6% of ICU beds are open, with 41.7% used by COVID-19 patients.
“I give them so much credit weathering through this second wave of the pandemic,” she said. “It’s here. I see how tired they are. I see the frustration on their faces when I go to work. They know this is going to be a repeat of last spring, which, of course, was not a good thing.
“I feel like I’m doing something for them, that I can fill some of these positions that we’re short at. A lot of the girls are out on pregnancy leave and we do have some that are out with the virus,” she said. “They have not only put themselves at risk, but their families.”
Like anyone, she worries about health risks. But, with no kids, she felt it wasn’t the same risk as fellow nurses that could take the virus home to their young children. She and her partner have been cautious around family, because she has
direct contact with patients, Parker said.
Becoming a nurse was “actually a dream of my mother’s,” she said, who never got the chance.
Her mother ended up raising three kids, but died in her 40s. When Parker became a nurse, with an interest in cardiac nursing, she ended up in the intermediate care unit (IMCU), one level below the intensive care unit, working there for 35 of 39 years in Dyer.
They treat patients who are not sick enough for the ICU, but too ill for the regular hospital floors, typically recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, those who underwent stomach surgery for weight loss, or some recovering heart patients.
She’s seen how fragile a virus patient’s outlook can be. COVID-19 patients, particularly, can quickly take a turn for the worse.
“The oxygen levels can plummet,” she said. “They can go bad very quickly and wind up on ICU on a ventilator.”
Because visitors are restricted, patients are isolated. Some patients may have the TV or be able to FaceTime with family, but many are too sick.
“They are there for a very long time,” she said. “When they are that sick to be in the hospital, you’re talking weeks, sometimes over a month there by themselves. We are all that they have, basically.”
Eight months in, hospitals, doctors and nurses have learned “tricks” how to better care for COVID-19 patients. The hospital has added machines for more negative pressure rooms — filtering air in and out. Nurses have extended IVs out to the hallways to minimize trips inside a room.
“We’ll all get through it,” she said.
Indiana needs more health care workers. The state department of health has asked those qualified since March to sign up for its COVID-19 Healthcare Reserve Workforce to help hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities with staffing shortages.
To date, 5,636 nurses have stepped forward, including 425 who were retired, Indiana State Department of Health spokeswoman Megan Wade-Taxter said. More than 725 doctors also signed up, including 81 coming back from retirement.
Any health care worker with an active license within the past five years that wasn’t revoked/suspended can apply for a temporary permit, she said. It OKs them to work for up to 90 days or “until the public health emergency is over.”
Other retired nurses returned on their own to stay busy, helping their hospitals in other areas.
“That’s the only job I’ve had,” said Donna Gribschaw, 66, of Valparaiso, a retired orthopedics nurse.
She became a nurse in 1971, straight out of high school, retiring in 2018. The last decade of her career was at Community, where she helped set up the Joint Academy that helps patients get through knee and hip replacements.
“My passion was orthopedics,” she said.
She came back from retirement in September, working a few days a week, she said. After the pandemic hit, she’s pitching in with employee health, helping to give staff flu shots or other vaccines. It helps free up the staff there, she said.
“I always wanted to be a nurse,” said Shirley, 69, another retired nurse, who asked that her last name not be used.
After her three sons were grown, she went back to school at Prairie State University in Illinois, graduating at age 47. She started at Community in 1998 and retired in 2018.
Last year, her former boss called and asked if she wanted to work “a day here, a day there” to help out. In the past week, she’s started helping people before they go under anesthesia. Working two days a week, even though she’s not directly with COVID-19 patients, she wanted to pitch in.
“They are orientating me,” she said. “There’s always something new.”