On the front lines
As COVID surges again, weary Danbury Hospital health care workers remain committed to their patients
Samantha Ingrao’s first COVID-19 patient reminded her of her grandmother. The older, Italian woman didn’t know how to use her phone — her only connection to her family, stuck scared at home. So Ingrao took a picture of the patient on her own phone and sent it to the family.
The woman died a day or two later.
“I picture her face all the time,” said Ingrao, a 32-year-old New Fairfield woman and nurse at Danbury Hospital.
The family later found Ingrao on Facebook and thanked her for providing the last picture they have of their grandmother. Ingrao has the picture saved and printed.
“(This) taught me, ‘OK, this is important to keep the family involved as much as possible,’ ”
she said.
Ingrao is one of countless health care workers at Danbury Hospital who have contributed to the fight against COVID-19 over the last 19 months.
From housekeepers to home-care nurses, the team has been resilient — albeit tired — even as the hospital is hit with another surge, said Sharon Adams, president of Danbury and New Milford hospitals
“It’s going to take all of us going forward as a team,” she said. “They’re going to continue to be heroes throughout, whether it’s through this surge or going forward.”
She said every individual “stepped up” to support patients.
That includes Tammy Perkins, who has worked for Danbury Hospital for 19 years in various roles, most recently in housekeeping. But beginning late 2020, she assisted with COVID-19 vaccinations, helping check people in. This January she will become a medical assistant thanks to that experience.
“It’s been tough, it’s been very tough,” said Tammy Perkins, a 49-year-old Danbury resident. “But for the most part, you roll up your sleeves and do what you have to do.”
Erin Ehrhard, a home care nurse, felt similarly. She cared for the first homecare COVID patient, speaking to his family in the driveway before donning her personal protective equipment and going inside.
“You’re sort of worried about yourself initially,” she said. “But then I was kind of struck, as soon as I saw how sick he was, the nursing instinct took over, and I wasn’t worried about myself anymore.”
Early COVID
Ehrhard’s patient had been hospitalized for COVID and then sent home, but she had to send him back.
“What I wasn’t prepared for was his family processing that he was so sick, and that if he went back to the hospital, they might never see him again,” said the 43-year-old Bethel womant.
Her patient eventually came home, but that kind of “fear” and the “panic” defined the pandemic, she said.
Ehrhard recalled donning gowns, gloves and masks under cover of a porch or her Jeep in the rain and snow. She still wears full protective gear when seeing COVID patients.
Early into the pandemic, nurses were the only ones permitted to go into COVID rooms, which meant they had to do “everything,” said Ingrao, who worked on the COVID unit on Nine Tower.
Visitors weren’t allowed, so families had to say goodbye to their dying loved ones through iPads as Ingrao and other nurses held the patients’ hands.
“That was almost like an every day thing,” she said. “Honestly, it was very hard.”
The nurses relied on each other, crying in each other’s arms, she said. She was grateful for community members who sent in food.
“I never felt alone,” Ingrao said. Housekeepers faced changing requirements “basically daily,” said Perkins, who helps supervise the housekeepers. She recalled using lots of wipes and sanitizer in her car before coming home.
“It was very scary,” said Perkins, whose husband is a kidney transplant recipient.
They got COVID in April, putting her out of work for two weeks. Her back hurt, then she got a headache, then a sore throat, followed by coughing and a fever. Most of her symptoms lasted for four or five days, but she couldn’t smell or taste for three months. That was tough because cooking is her “outlet,” she said.
“The first thing I tasted was peanut butter,” Perkins said. “I was trying to look for something strong and that was it.”
Her tastebuds have changed. The former avid coffee drinker no longer likes it, she said.
Ehrhard has been COVID-free.
"I feel like the doors are closing in around me recently, but knock on wood, I did not (get COVID),” she said.
Another surge
Adrenaline carried Ehrhard through the first 1 1⁄2 years of the pandemic, and she was relieved when the number of cases declined earlier this year, she said.
“Recently, I have been really frustrated because I can’t believe it’s coming back more contagious than it was before supposedly, and it’s affecting everything again,” said the former high school science teacher who has been in home care with Nuvance for nearly six years. “I’m just frustrated, not with anyone or anything, just frustrated.”
But Ehrhard said she’s no longer afraid of the virus because she’s vaccinated and experts understand more about how the virus spreads and how to treat it.
The increase in COVID hospitalizations have increased demands for the housekeepers, Perkins said.
“It’s definitely stressful,” she said. Nuvance offers wellness, employee assistance and peer support programs to staff, Adams said. As the hospital faces a fourth surge, she described staff as “tired.”
“They’re still coming and are committed to their patients,” Adams said.
Ingrao, who has worked at Danbury Hospital for nearly four years, has moved from the COVID unit to the Emergency Department.
“I was seeking something different,” she said. “I also love excitement.”
She said she’s facing facing the latest surge with a “different mentality.”
“It’s almost like bring it on,” Ingrao said. “We’ve done it before. We can do it again.”