Behind The Mask 2020

PageO Greenwood Commonwealth / Weekend, May 9-10, 2020 _befka=qeb=j^ph =======================================================================================================================================================================

Hospital angels

PageP Greenwood Commonwealth / Weekend, May 9-10, 2020 _befka=qeb=j^ph =======================================================================================================================================================================

On the COVID-19 Front Lines

Professionals work long hours, know risks

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ears welled in the eyes of Candace Brown and eased onto her mask.

“You feel like you are doing all you can, but it’s never enough,” she confessed.

Brown, 32, is one of the three or four respiratory therapists working 12-hour shifts in Greenwood Leflore Hospital’s COVID19 intensive care unit. This is a place where some sick people get better and some do not — and where the doctors, nurses and therapists who care for them must cover any concern for their own health with the same attire they use to protect patients: gloves, masks, shields, isolation robes and sometimes hair nets.

It’s become an unplanned way of life for those, like Brown, who already knew they loved caring for others but had no idea they would be working day in, day out to save lives during a pandemic.

“You are trying to do it as easy as possible even though it is probably one of the hardest things you will ever do,” she said.

Brown’s from Tillatoba, where she and her husband, Derick, are the parents of a new baby, Everett, who was born Jan. 29.

Her husband works a night shift in Grenada, and Candace Brown’s parents keep the baby, who is still waking up at night to eat.

“It’s stressful,” Brown acknowledged, and she said she worries about her family’s possible exposure to the novel coronavirus.

“You don’t want to take it home to them,” she explained.

“There are a lot of underlying problems with the virus. We don’t know enough about it.”

But she knows more than most. The respiratory therapists, working in concert with nurses and doctors in the unit, handle the ventilators that allow patients to breathe when their bodies are oxygendeprived.

“We manage the oxygen supply. We control the airway,” Brown said. There are two basic options. One simply aids and supports breath. The other is more invasive, using a tube down the throat to ventilate the lungs. Patients are sedated and sometimes even paralyzed with medication so their bodies won’t struggle against the mechanical inflation and deflation of their lungs provided by the ventilator.

“You are putting them into rest so they can take time to heal without struggling,” Brown said.

She’s been a respiratory therapist for roughly nine years and has worked at Greenwood Leflore for eight of those years.

She said patients sometimes thrive after ministrations in the regular ICU or through the respiratory therapy department at the hospital.

“I love to hear from them,” Brown said.

“It lifts you up.”

In other times, patients and their families would have been able to visit. But these days in the COVID unit, patients are quarantined, even from those who are closest to them. It hurts her to know that they long for one another but cannot be together at a critical time.

And of course, some patients do not survive, and their families are wrenched by not having been able to be at their bedside.

“We have to keep it together,” Brown said. “But behind closed doors, we are grieving with them.” v v v

Dr. Rachael White Faught. 37, is gratified to be at the hospital and in her hometown right now when COVID patients in Greenwood need her careful attention dur-

As a respiratory therapist, Candace Brown works with patients in the COVID-19 unit at Greenwood Leflore Hospital.

Dr. Rachael Faught, a critical care specialist, works in the COVID19 unit at Greenwood Leflore Hospital.

“I know there are risks,” she says. “At the same time, somebody has to take the risks. I can do it.”

ing trying times.

“I am trained to do it,” she said, while acknowledging that “I had no idea that early in my career I would live through a global pandemic. ... I know there are risks.

At the same time, somebody has to take the risks. I can do it.”

Faught, who began practicing in Greenwood in 2016, is the daughter of a physician and a retired registered nurse.

Practicing medicine was a straight career path for her. She graduated from Mississippi State University and Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Her residency was at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in internal medicine, and she completed a fellowship at UMMC in pulmonology and critical care. She is board certified in internal medicine, pulmonology

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and critical care. She describes herself and doctors like her as “intensivists.”

One of these is Dr. Joe Pressler, whose credentials are similar to Faught’s. They take turns at the 16-bed COVID unit, which at times has been filled close to capacity. Pressler will be there one week and Faught the next.

Each needs the week of rest to perform at their best when on duty. Their days are long and hard, with many difficult decisions to make.

Faught’s day on duty begins well before she gets to the hospital. She rises early, and by 7:30, the unit’s staff is calling with results from blood tests and X-rays and reports of anything abnormal from the night before. Shortly afterward, she’s in the hospital, checking on patients in the regular ICU before heading for the COVID unit around 9:30 a.m. “That’s when the onslaught begins,” Faught said.

There might be any number of patients there. Some will have already been diagnosed with COVID-19. Others are being investigated for the disease, and results are not yet available. These days, there’s usually a 24-hour turnaround on testing, depending on the schedule of couriers who pick up the tests for delivery to outside laboratories.

The numbers change every day. One day this week, there were eight patients, all positive, with five on ventilators. The next day, there were 10, all positive, with four on ventilators. At times, 15 of the 16 beds on the unit were populated with positive cases and those under investigation.

Faught confers with the nursing staff and then visits with the patients, starting first with those under investigation. In some cases, the latter can safely be discharged to quarantine at home, and it’s often better for them and the other patients in the unit if they don’t have to stay there.

“Then, I see all of the positives,” Faught said. “Most of them are sedated,” she continued.

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Sometimes ventilators need adjustments. She provides the nurses and respiratory therapists with plans for the day and sits down before a computer to look at lab results and medications. Nurses and therapists come to her with information and questions, sometimes looking for direction. “I start writing notes sitting in the middle of the nurses,” she said.

At some point, she grabs a snack, often from meals provided by folks outside the hospital. “The community has been so kind to us recently. They have provided food for us, so I usually do get something to eat.”

The day continues. “About 6:30, I decide whether I am going to eat with my family or stay at the hospital.” Her husband, Danny, works for the state Department of Revenue in Alcoholic Beverage Control.

They have two sons, Randle, 7, and Ryan, 4.

Often, Faught stays at the hospital until 10:30 p.m. Once, she left for home at 4 a.m.

Another time, she spent the night in a room there.

COVID-19 can affect the lungs — usually they are first — followed by the kidneys and then the heart and liver. Faught supports the lockdowns and other restrictions designed to flatten out the curve to keep the number of cases from overwhelming the medical care available. “It is about spreading it out over time,” she said.

The hospital has a total of 19 ventilators.

“We have not come to a situation here in Greenwood where we have to choose who gets a ventilator,” she said. “I don’t want to get to that point.”

As it is, the plight of patients hurts her.

“One of the heart-breaking things is to feel like you are working so hard and they die anyway. ... to have those bad outcomes is just devastating,” she said.

It’s hard to understand. “I am a spiritual person. I have faith. I am not mad at God. This is just a trying time,” said Faught, a communicant of the Episcopal Church of the Nativity.

Faught’s not uneasy for herself. She feels strong and able and knows she is in the right place.

“I certainly feel a sense of community. I feel at home. I feel a responsibility to the people of the Delta.” v v v

Dr. Bahati Harden’s not behind the mask inside the COVID-19 unit, but she’s wearing one behind the scenes and has been since COVID-19 broke out in Leflore County in mid-March.

And she has one message: “We still have active cases here. We need the community to be practicing physical distancing.”

Harden, 40, practices what she preaches.

Not only does she wear a mask, but she, like other doctors, conducts telemedicine rather than seeing patients face to face.

She’s originally from Natchez, where she has a house, and she tries to keep her mother from dropping by when she’s there.

She knows that person-to-person proximity can lead to a visit to the COVID-19 unit, and she wants to keep people from having to go there.

The family practice physician has been tracking the new coronavirus’ presence for a couple of months now and has used what she knows about epidemics and preparing for one to bolster the hospital’s COVID response.

Harden has medical degrees from University of Mississippi Medical Center and completed a residency in rural medicine at Louisiana State University. Before going to medical school, she went to Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and through Tulane, she worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She was trained in “interfacing between the community health care workers and the public health department.” She was there during the anthrax scares following 9/11.

“One of the programs we worked on while I was there was training lab personnel how to analyze anthrax samples,” she said. “It was a cool job, but I realized at the time that ... I prefer personal interactions.”

So she went to medical school.

Harden said she came to Leflore County seven years ago particularly because of the health issues rampant in the county, such as heart disease and diabetes.

One of the first things she does during the workday is head for her computer at

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the Leflore Specialty Clinic, which also houses the practices of the COVID unit’s pulmonologists, Faught and Pressler. She said it’s been helpful to already know those doctors while she works to provide insight into the progress of COVID-19 in Leflore County and areas nearby. Among other activities, she prepares the agenda for the hospital’s COVID-19 task force meetings, which are frequent.

What is she doing on that computer besides working with her patients through FaceTime and other software? She is checking websites of the CDC and the Mississippi State Department of Health for updates, including statistics on the spread of the virus. She wants to know if the federal and state stats “click with what I know them to be” through her own observations, information from others in the medical community and conversations with public officials, such as Fred Randle, the county’s emergency management coordinator.

Harden is trying to see how the present might affect the future. That’s what she had been doing when she and Dr. Billy Boldon, the hospital’s chief of staff, organized the community’s first COVID-19 screenings on the weekend of March 14 close to the hospital. She and Boldon were surprised when 120 people showed up over two days. At that time, they learned enough to be certain that the outbreak was already well underway in the community.

And Harden began to see examples of how hard it would be to fight. She and Boldon talked to people whom they identified as likely to have the virus and urged them to quarantine themselves at home for 14 days. Later, she saw some of them out shopping.

Harden said she knew there were more to come.

She’s not worried for herself about exposure through her practice.

“As a family medicine doctor, you experience risks all the time. We get exposed to everything from lice to the flu. It’s part of the job.”

COVID-19 unit.

She’s a graduate of Leflore County High School, Mississippi Delta Community College and the nursing school at Mississippi University for Women. She’s a single mother with an 11-year-old daughter, Kayley, who is staying with her grandmother. Kayley and her mom see each other on Elam’s day off, and otherwise they get together on FaceTime. “She understands,” said Elam. “She’s OK with it.”

And Elam acknowledged that her daughter is proud of her mother’s commitment during the pandemic.

“I have always had the compassion and heart to serve others,” said Elam. Before

she became an RN, she worked for the state Department of Health’s District 3, which is headquartered in Greenwood.

Her boss was the late Dr. Alfio Rausa, and she was involved in several of the district’s programs, including the Delta Health Collaborative. But she knew she really wanted to be a nurse.

Her workday begins around 5 a.m., when she rises with a prayer. “I just pray, ‘Heal these patients, and be here in this time of crisis.’”

By 5:45 a.m., she’s on the job in the unit.

And she’s busy, as are the other nurses — about five per shift. The doctor on duty that day will want reports on how each patient did overnight and will want to discuss any changes to be made.

The pandemic puts Elam in rooms with critically ill patients who often are in a medically induced coma in order to be on a ventilator.

She speaks to them anyway, explaining what’s she’s doing while implementing procedures. Elam said she might say, “Mr. Jack ... I’m about to suction you.” Her thought is, “I treat them like they can hear me, because who’s to say they can’t hear me?”

Elam and other caregivers wear the protective gear, including a mask, shield and isolation gown. “It’s different,” she said. “It’s a little overwhelming in itself.”

Among the things the nursing staff tries to do is comfort both the patients and their families who are completely separated because of COVID-19. The patients don’t have landline phones in their rooms, and the nurses provide updates, speaking with family members who can call for information at specific times: 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.

They also stay in touch with doctors. “We handle things as a nurse. But if it is out of the scope of our practice, we will contact the doctor,” she said.

Elam acutely understands what she is doing and considers herself fortunate.

“I feel it is a blessing to be able to walk in these shoes each day and come in and take care of these patients with gratitude,” she said. v v v

Candace Brown, the respiratory therapist, was thinking about the commitment of those who staff the COVID-19 unit.

They look at the possibility of death and the fight for life.

“Everyone up there has a genuine concern for the patient,” she said, so the battle is worth the long hours and occasional tears. “It’s what we signed up for,” Brown said. “It’s our job.” n

v v v

Briauna Elam’s heart for the welfare of others led her to nursing. Now, the 37-yearold registered nurse from Greenwood is a charge nurse who works directly with the doctors and other nurses — and the patients, of course — in the hospital’s

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Battle tested

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Gary Marchand

Hospital interim CEO learned from Katrina O

n Friday, March 13, Leflore County had its first person to test positive for COVID-19. By the following Monday, Dr. Billy Boldon, the chief of staff at Greenwood Leflore Hospital, assembled a group of a dozen fellow physicians to brainstorm over a plan to address an anticipated rush of patients infected with the highly contagious respiratory disease.

Over the next couple of days, this task force — which would grow to include hospital administrators and heads of all of the facility’s impacted departments — formulated a long list of recommendations.

Primary among them were a severely restricted visitation policy and the creation of an intensive care unit dedicated solely to treating COVID-19 patients.

The list was given to Gary Marchand, the hospital’s interim chief executive officer.

Within 24 hours, Boldon said, Marchand came back to the physicians with a detailed plan for implementing every item on their list.

“He got his administrative team together, and he came back one by one and said, ‘OK, this is what you said, this is how we’re going to do it, this is how we’re going to do it,’ straight down the line, which was really, really impressive,” said Boldon, who is a pediatrician.

That is an example of Boldon the organizational and leadership skills that have drawn rave reviews of Marchand from those who have worked with him in the eight months since he came out of retirement to temporarily head Greenwood’s 208-bed hospital. Those same skills have been indispensable in dealing with a health crisis that, in less experienced and less calm hands, could have sent the hospital into chaos.

“Without his leadership, I think we would have been lost,” said Boldon. vvv

Administration, by definition, is a constant exercise in crisis management. Some crises, though, are of such magnitude that they are usually once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

Marchand, as a top hospital administrator, has now experienced two of them.

Fourteen years and seven months before the first Mississippian died from COVID19, Marchand was working as the chief executive officer of Gulfport’s Memorial Hospital when Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast.

One of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history, the 2005 storm claimed 1,200 lives and did more than $100 billion in property damage.

Memorial Hospital, located less than a mile inland, suffered wind damage but was spared the storm surge that leveled block after block of the Coast. Powered with stand-by generators for six days until the main power could be restored, it was the only hospital on the Coast that stayed open in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, admitting patients, including those needing intensive care.

As darkness set in that first night after Katrina made landfall, the hospital was about the only structure in its neighborhood still with lights. Refugees from the storm began walking toward it, coming out

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of the trees and water, some of them physically injured, most of them emotionally stunned.

With nowhere for many of them to go, the hospital on the fly turned a cafeteria into an emergency shelter that at one point would house 200 people.

It was a monumental period in Marchand’s long career in health care, and the lessons he learned from it kicked in when it came time to deal with the worst pandemic in a century.

“We’re extremely fortunate to have someone of Gary’s caliber here, someone who has the experience that he has had in dealing with, for lack of better terminology, hospitals when things go wrong,” said Harris Powers Jr., chairman of Greenwood Leflore Hospital’s board.

“The guy just knows what he’s doing, and he’s got the respect of everybody out there. The decisions he makes are all decisions that are in the best interest of the hospital. Hence, they’re in the best interest of the community.” vvv

Marchand, 67, was brought to Greenwood in October 2019 to bring stability to an operation that had been in turmoil for a couple of years — losing money, losing physicians and losing the confidence of the community it serves.

Following a shakeup on the hospital board, one interim CEO was let go, and Marchand was hired to fill in while the search for a permanent replacement continued.

He is a certified public accountant who began his career as an audit manager for a major accounting firm in his hometown of New Orleans. He later became interested in health care while serving as the vice president of finance for Touro Infirmary, an academic medical center in New Orleans.

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“(Gary Marchand) just knows what he’s doing, and he’s got the respect of everybody out there.

The decisions he makes are all decisions that are in the best interest of the hospital. Hence, they’re in the best interest of the community. ’’ Harris Powers Jr.

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In the early 1990s, he moved to Mississippi’s Gulf Coast to become the chief financial officer for Memorial Hospital, a medical facility about three times the size of Greenwood’s. After 12 years in that role, he was promoted to CEO, a position he held for 15 years before retiring in 2018.

After arriving in Greenwood, he instantly began helping to repair what had become a fractious relationship between the administration and medical staff.

“It’s probably the best relationship we’ve had with an administrator in quite some time,” said Boldon. “He’s very ‘physicianfriendly,’ and that’s our word for saying he listens to our needs and tries to address them if it’s appropriate.”

Allan Hammons, whose advertising agency has handled the hospital’s market-

ing for most of the past two decades, said that he likes Marchand’s low-key management style.

“He’s not a guy who’s yelling and shouting,” Hammons said. “He always seems to be in control and has a plan.”

Although Marchand has heard some of the accolades, he’s reluctant to take much credit.

“What I see is I’m around a group of people that cared about this organization and this community before I got here. I get to watch them work.

“I’m sure at the end of the day there is some contribution I brought to some table or some discussion somewhere because I went through Katrina down on the coast. I appreciate other people saying it, but personally I don’t see it.”

Boldon said the hospital board also deserves praise, not just for hiring a person of Marchand’s background but also for the support it has given the medical staff during such a trying time, as Leflore County deals with being one of Mississippi’s COVID-19 hot spots.

“The hospital board has been extremely supportive,” Boldon said, “and I don’t think we could have done a lot of things we’ve done if they wouldn’t have been behind Mr. Marchand and allowed us to do them.”

How long Marchand will be around has not been determined. The avid sailor has kept his home in Long Beach. He stays in Greenwood during the week and returns most weekends to the Gulf Coast.

The hope, said both Boldon and Powers, is that Marchand will not only help find his permanent replacement but also stay on for a while after that to assist in the transition.

Powers said he doesn’t think Marchand is the type to leave Greenwood in a lurch.

“He does feel that he has made a difference here, and he feels that the hospital is lucky to have the employees it has.” n

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Focused on customers

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Grocery Stores and Restaurants

Selling food during pandemic is a challenge

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hile some Greenwood residents have hunkered down at home since last month in response to Gov. Tate Reeves’ shelter-inplace order, for other residents who have essential jobs, it has been business as usual during the COVID-19 pandemic.

These include workers at grocery stores and restaurants, who have worked and are continuing to work to ensure food is available for others in the community.

Peggy Smith, an assistant department manager at Greenwood Market Place, said she’s “seen it all” among customers since the pandemic first took hold in Greenwood.

She said she has seen “happiness, greed, people panicking” as people have flocked to grocery stores.

Smith Some anxious shoppers have thrown money at clerks to avoid contact; some have brought in multiple family members in spite of the social distancing rules.

“We’re here for them, and we’re trying our best,” Smith said.

Terri Clark — a floor Clark manager at Market Place who calls herself a “jack of all trades and master of none” — was amazed by the

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“Man, I don’t know what the deal is with toilet paper. It’s like they’re eating it for breakfast, lunch and supper. ’’ Terri Clark

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number of shoppers hoarding rolls of toilet paper.

“Man, I don’t know what the deal is with toilet paper,” Clark said. “It’s like they’re eating it for breakfast, lunch and supper.”

Clark said she was dismayed by the hoarding because it makes it difficult for

the elderly, who often have to pick and choose when they can go out since they’re at higher risk of getting severely ill from the coronavirus.

During a recent morning hour set up to allow only the elderly to shop at Market Place, Clark encountered an elderly cus-

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tomer who said it was her first outing in two weeks.

Working at a grocery store, a business people rely on whether there’s a pandemic or not, means keeping up with the flow of customers. That flow has increased during the pandemic, cashier Deandra Washington said.

Washington remembers a surge in shoppers around the time the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in Leflore County.

“It was like everyone in Greenwood coming in at once,” she said — and she also had noticed customers from other towns, including Winona, Cleveland and Grenada.

“We had to work extra hard to get people in and out of the store,” she said. “We had to sanitize everything.”

Derrick Simpson, the general manager of Market Place, said employees continue to sanitize handles around the clock.

Though the Market Place employees

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take pride in being essential workers, they do have some fears themselves.

“I’m out here amongst all this. I put myself at risk to help others,” Smith said.

As for the possibility of infection, she said, “I look at it this way: If it’s time, it’s my time.”

“I’m just hoping and praying this will hurry up and be over with and get back to normal,” Smith said.

Natasha Page, a scan coordinator at Market Place, is in charge of changing prices for items throughout the store. “It’s kind of scary working, but we try to be as safe as possible,” Page said.

Page has expressed concern that people may be asymptomatic carriers of the coronavirus, a fact that’s made more complicated since testing for the virus remains limited to those who experience symptoms of the respiratory disease.

“Just the thought (that) you don’t know if you got it or not,” Page said. “You just don’t know.”

Though she wears a mask and gloves, like other employees, Page does worry about the chance that she might infect her family. So she is extra careful at work.

Since the emergence of the pandemic, By the Bridge Bistro, like other restaurants in Greenwood and elsewhere, has been hampered by the social restrictions put in place to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Because of this, as well as the number of frenzied shoppers descending on grocery stores, By the Bridge owners and brothers Ben and Caleb Cox decided to offer select grocery and cleaning items for purchase at their restaurant.

“Our main thing we sold was milk, ground beef, rice, eggs, bleach and toilet paper, of all things,” Ben said.

The mission of By the Bridge Bistro’s small grocery store — which has slimmed down in recent weeks as grocery stores have been restocked — is twofold, the Cox brothers explained. It was intended to help the restaurant stay afloat while people stayed at home and also help those who needed groceries but did not want to go to a crowded grocery store.

Taking advantage of the restaurant’s access to the food supply chain, By the Bridge Bistro could offer hard-to-find grocery items, such as milk and ground beef, Caleb explained.

The restaurant also offered payment online or by the phone and provided curbside delivery, which made it easy for the restaurant’s elderly customers, he said.

“We just knew we had to use our resources,” Caleb said.

By the Bridge has continued to serve its own meals through curbside pickup and takeout.

Thanks to the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program, which provides small businesses with loans that are forgiven

if they keep their employees on payroll for eight weeks, Ben said that the restaurant was able to continue operating with all seven employees, although their hours have been reduced.

Jacqueline Fluker, who works at By the Bridge, said that though it’s “scary” to work during a pandemic, she loves being able to provide for the customers.

“Our customers love our food, so we try to be open and stay open,” she said.

Above: Employees of By the Bridge Bistro continue to work during the COVID19 pandemic. Back row, from left, are co-owner Ben Cox, Courtney Johnson, Bridgett Scales and co-owner Caleb Cox. Front row, from left, are Tanya Carpenter and Jacqueline Fluker. Right: Grocery items that By the Bridge had offered during the pandemic include bottled water, toilet paper, loaves of bread and canned vegetables.

Although there’s been joy in continuing to serve customers through takeout or curbside pickup, Ben said part of a restaurant’s existence is the dine-in experience. By the Bridge plans to reintroduce that experience Monday, following the governor’s relaxing of some dining restrictions.

“We need fellowship to return. Restaurants are more than just eating; they’re a time for fellowship,” Ben said. “We’re ready to offer that again.”n

Natasha Page, a scan coordinator at Greenwood Market Place, says working during a pandemic can be scary but “we try to be as safe as possible.”

Providing comfort

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Nursing Homes

Pandemic has added to employees’ duties

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ecause nursing homes’ residents face a higher risk of getting severely ill if infected with the coronavirus, nurses and certified nursing assistants at these facilities are taking extra precautions to limit the spread of the virus.

At the same time, as nursing homes have shut their doors to visitors, staff are working to ensure residents still have a human connection.

That’s been the case for the nursing staff at Golden Age nursing home, where employees’ daily work now includes more than nursing duties.

Latosha Sanders, the director of nursing services at Golden Age, is one of the employees on the front line.

“It’s a stressful time. It’s one of those things we thought we’d never experience in this lifetime,” she said. “We hear about it happening in other countries but nothing in this magnitude.”

Sanders said she was “taken back” when the pandemic first hit Leflore County in March.

“It made it all the way to small-town Greenwood,” she said. “We did not want what happened in Washington, in New Jersey, to happen at Golden Age.” “My stresses are probably not stresses of residents who are away from family,”

Sanders said.

What the nursing staff of Golden Age are stressed out about is ensuring that they’re keeping track of the coronavirus, which is constantly evolving, and working to ensure residents stay healthy.

Nursing staff are now pivoting toward non-nursing duties as they find themselves working as providers, in staffing and in social services, said Jacqueline Ware, a family nurse practitioner at Golden Age. Prior to the pandemic, Golden Age’s twoperson social services department was adequate in handling phone calls from residents inquiring about their loved ones.

Now, with visits prohibited, more staff at Golden Age have had to step up to field phone calls.

“We’re having to be more of their advocate, more of their eyes and ears for their family members,” Sanders said.

Nursing staff are now regularly in touch with family members to let them know that a letter has been received and to provide updates on the health of their loved ones, Ware said.

Another duty also includes connecting residents and their family members through FaceTime chats. “We’re in isolation, but they’re not isolated from the rest ^=ëáÖå=éä~ÅÉÇ=áå=Ñêçåí=çÑ=íÜÉ=Éåíê~åÅÉ=çÑ=dçäÇÉå=^ÖÉ=åìêëáåÖ=ÜçãÉ=ÅÉäÉÄê~íÉë=áíë=ëí~ÑÑI of the world,” Ware said.

Ware said the role she has struggles with ïÜç=ÅçåíáåìÉ=íç=ïçêâ=Ñçê=áíë=êÉëáÇÉåíë=~ãáÇ=íÜÉ=`lsfaJNV=é~åÇÉãáÅK= pqlov=_v=dbo^oa=baf`=n melql=`lroqbpv=lc=dliabk=^db=fk`K

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Tim Kalich

Tim Kalich

Businesses recognized as “heroes” for their work during the COVID-19 pandemic have included, clockwise from above, Crystal Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center, Fresenius Medical Care and Greenwood Leflore Hospital. the most is deciding when it’s appropriate to send residents to a hospital for treatment, which carries a risk of infection, and when they can be treated at Golden Age. Though there can be fear and stress while working through a pandemic, it’s important to stay calm so as not to rattle the residents. “We realize we could not go into panic mode,” Ware said. “We didn’t want to make it as if we’re on edge.”

Occasionally, Golden Age will hold small sessions for its residents to allow them to express their concerns, which Ware said are mainly about two things: how long the lockdown will last and when they can see their families again.

“We don’t really have an answer for that,” she said.

“We’re just not sure.”

Golden Age staff are working to ensure that staff and residents are properly screened for COVID-19 and that residents are kept in the loop about news pertaining to COVID-19.

“We’re always being diligent about following infection control policies, that employees are implementing those,” which includes regular handwashing and wearing masks, Sanders said.

Both Sanders and Ware recognized the possibility that the nursing home may be infected since workers continue to go home and out in public on occasion, such as to shop for groceries.

“There’s always that risk.

We’re doing the screening process. We’re checking the temperatures,” Sanders said.

Ware said that the mandatory wearing of masks among employees helps prevent the spread of

droplets, which prevents the spread of the disease.

Even during these trying times, Ware and Sanders take pride in their work.

“A lot of the residents, they see us as their chil-

dren,” Sanders said. “They care about us. They love us dearly.”

“Doing what we do is very rewarding,” she said.

“It has its challenges. We’re imperfect people, but we

strive our best to make sure our residents are worth it.”

Although their work often is a thankless job, residents and their families have been expressing their appreciation, she said.

Susan Montgomery

One particular joy is when residents are able to reunite with family by visiting at Golden Age’s glass doors.

“It brings so much joy,” Sanders said. “To go for not

seeing someone to seeing someone, you feel the love that they express. It’s not always in words. It’s in the moment they’re in.”

“It’s very touching,” Ware said. n

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