by Bob Luder, photos by LMH Health Team
The jobs of essential health-care workers, from doctors and nurses to first responders to facilities workers, have become even more vital because of the COVID pandemic. James Fly is happy to discuss and tout the essential work he and his Surgical Services department undertake on a daily basis at LMH Health. He’s just as quick to point out areas of the hospital’s operations that might not be as obvious as medical personnel performing surgery but are just as critical to its effectiveness as one of the top medical and health centers in the Lawrence and Douglas County area. “When people talk about essential health workers, I think they often only think of doctors and nurses,” says Fly, RN, MSN, MBA, director of Surgical Services at LMH. “When I think of essential workers, I think of (emergency medical services), dietary specialists, aides, facilities workers, first- responders, maintenance workers. They really run 60
the gamut of all the many different areas and operations of the hospital, and they’re all essential.” All those departments and jobs working in unison became even more vital with the arrival of the novel coronavirus— officially dubbed COVID-19—in March. In the six months since, the virus, believed to have originated in Wuhan, China, has infected more than 25 million worldwide, resulting in nearly 850,000 deaths. In the U.S., as of August 31, 2020, there have been almost 6 million cases reported and more than 182,000 deaths. Lawrence and LMH haven’t been hit as hard as many other areas of the U.S.—and the world—but it has been hit. As of August 30, Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health had reported 1,303 total cases and eight deaths in the county. An infection rate that was spiking dramati-
