COVID Champions: Vanessa Cook helps navigate the unknown
Photo | Courtesy of Milford Regional Medical Center
Vanessa Cook, emergency department nurse at Milford Regional Medical Center
- Vanessa Cook
- Emergency department nurse
- Milford Regional Medical Center
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During the spring surge of the coronavirus pandemic, information and medical guidance was changing so fast, the staff at Milford Regional Medical Center would sometimes get updates as many as three times a day.
“You never knew what the right thing to do for a period because it kept changing,” said Vanessa Cook, an emergency department nurse at Milford Regional.
It wasn’t just Milford Regional initially in the dark, of course. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, whose guidance is typically highly sought for such occasions, was trying to determine exactly how easily the virus spread among people and how often it was deadly. Top health officials initially suggested people didn’t need to wear masks in everyday life.
Knowledge of the virus wasn’t all the health field had to catch up on. Personal protective equipment was in such short supply that Milford Regional initially had smaller medical teams go into a patient’s room than it would otherwise so fewer people would have to don PPE.
“That was stressful because we’re used to working with a team,” Cook said.
Among the precautions the hospital took was posting a sign at the emergency room door advising anyone with symptoms to stay in their car, call a phone number, and have medical personnel come out to them. Inside the hospital, coronavirus patients were separated from others.
Eventually, Milford Regional caught up. Staff found everyone could be affected, not just the elderly or those with health risks. A local company donated Tyvek suits providing more than enough protection against the virus.
Cook, a native of Australia, came to the United States as an au pair and found she liked Massachusetts. She enrolled in college and found she enjoyed her sciences courses more than she had in high school. Many students in those courses were going into nursing, and she already found she enjoyed being a caregiver as an au pair.
Cook decided to go into nursing, and joined Milford Regional five years ago after working at a nursing home. She earned her American citizenship last year.
Cook expects nursing as a whole to change, even after the pandemic, with a greater awareness of preparing for the unknown. Milford Regional is far better prepared for a spike in cases this fall and winter than it was in the spring when the pandemic first hit, she said.
“It definitely was a nerve-wracking experience, and even now it can be a nerve-wracking experience,” she said.
“As a nurse, we plan for the worst and hope for the best. We have to plan for everything,” Cook said. “Along the way, we hope that everything is going to turn out OK.”
That hope includes the pandemic, and Cook is unsurprisingly among those touting the benefits of wearing a mask and social distancing, having seen the heartbreaking toll that the virus had brought.
“I wish that people would continue to wear their mask and socially distance,” she said. “I know people are tired, but we’re still working to get control of this.”
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