COVID Champions: Frontline workers have shown up every day, more committed than ever
Photo | Courtesy of Saint Vincent Hospital
Caregivers at Saint Vincent Hospital (from left) Alexandra Rovenelli, Tracey Belanger Brooks, Lisa Holmgren, Jennifer Tivnan, Bridgette Lalloo, and Carissa Rebidue
Medical professionals – especially those who work in an intensive care unit or emergency room – are used to seeing heartbreaking cases of disease, tragic accidents or violence. Virtually nothing, though, has been like the coronavirus pandemic.
At the worst of the pandemic in Central Mass., more than 400 people were in inpatient hospital care, and more than 100 in intensive care. That meant countless healthcare providers were rushed into a public health emergency the likes of which they’ve likely never experienced.
The stress on care providers has changed over time, said Dr. Michael Gustafson, the president of UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester: from very high acuity and mortality early in the pandemic to one that has required vigilance month after month.
“I continue to be amazed that they show up each day more committed than ever,” Gustafson said.
Hospital workers dealing directly with patients have been doing their best to land a hand, Cheryl Lapriore, UMass Memorial Health Care’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, said in a forum in November from the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association.
“I think of them as firefighters at the top of the ladder, fighting the flames,” Lapriore said of care providers. “But someone has to be at the bottom, holding the latter.”
That support has included making sure workers have child care, or enough food if food insecurity is a problem at home, or a way to get to work if they rely on public transportation, she said. Staff gatherings purposely included time for workers to share funny moments as a way to lighten the mood during challenging times.
“We spent a lot of time caring for the caregiver, and ... that gave people strong purpose, knowing they could hold up that ladder,” she said. “Each of us suits up for a pandemic. We might suit up differently, but we’re all here.”
It wasn’t only seasoned healthcare professionals dedicating each day – risking their own health and that of their loved ones – to treating sick patients. In the spring, roughly 75 students at UMass Medical School in Worcester graduated two months early to join the fight.
“I started to get calls from students saying ‘We could be doing something,’” UMass Medical School Chancellor Michael Collins said. Collins reached out to state officials and to his dean, Dr. Terence Flotte, to gauge how many students met requirements to graduate early. His answer came a few days later, on a Monday. By the very next day, March 31, an online commencement ceremony was held.
“They were grateful, excited, anxious, concerned. I was concerned. I was thinking, ‘What am I graduating these students into?’” Collins said.
Collins said graduates benefited from their close relationship with their professors, who in some cases quickly became their colleagues. “They come to us so idealistically,” he said. “They want to change the world. And here was their chance. You can tell your grandkids that you graduated early and got to work on a pandemic.”
These profiles are of a few of the many front-line workers who helped respond to the pandemic in Central Mass., showing a commitment to health and their patients as the coronavirus raged around them.
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