COVID-19: Healthcare workers need our help
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"We're just tired."
Matthew Upton, chief medical officer for Thomas Health, based in Charleston, was speaking to a WCHS reporter when he made that declaration last week. Surely he speaks for every healthcare worker in the state.
Those of us working outside the medical field (with the exception of first responders, of course) can have no idea what those men and women have endured for our sake -- for a year and a half.
"You go to work, you work all day, you go home, you think about all the people you took care of that day. You sometimes dream about them, especially if patients die. Almost like a PTSD type of thing. A lot of people don't see that," ER Nurse Adam Guthrie told WCHS.
For wave after wave of COVID-19 and its variants, healthcare workers have done grueling work to the point of exhaustion and it seems there is no end in sight. They're dealing with a shortage of nurses, too; and the loss of colleagues who are mind-bogglingly still unwilling to get vaccinated.
There is plenty the rest of us can do to help. If you know a healthcare worker, and there is a small everyday task you can take off their hands, do it. If there is help you can offer, offer it. Meanwhile, don't clog up the emergency rooms with non-emergencies -- talk to your primary care physician or an urgent care for that.
And for goodness sake, do your part to stop the spread of this monster. Get vaccinated, wear your masks, wash and sanitize your hands often, maintain social distance, get tested and stay home if you don't feel well … you all know full well what you SHOULD be doing right now. There are just too many still not doing it.
Such a decision is more than foolish, it is cruel. It puts the health of those around you in jeopardy AND it perpetuates an almost unbearably difficult workload for the healthcare workers in our communities. But you can turn that around. All you have to do is decide to do the right thing.