Nursing Through the Covid-19 Pandemic. Interview with Jenny H. The Struggles of Nursing Through the Pandemic. Hist 150 Spring 2022, Conducted by Abigail Hepler, March 22, 2022
Overview to social change interview:
This interview is about nursing during the Covid-19 pandemic. Research suggests that nurses who made it through the pandemic came were resilient.
Research described how regulations and guidelines were affected by this pandemic and a number of guidelines for hospitals and protocols that healthcare workers should follow were produced early on.
Before the current Covid-19 crisis, the last major global pandemic occurred in 2009 and it was known as the H1N1 Pandemic. This was an influenza pandemic. The number of deaths calculated from this virus was estimated at about 100,000-400,000 just in its first year. Every pandemic has had a significant affect on humans and we can all learn from them and take correct measures to do our best to limit them from occurring. We can all benefit from knowing more about these pieces of history.
Biography:
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 0:03
Okay. My name is Abby Hepler and today I’ll be talking to my mom, who I’ll be referring to as Jenny H. And the theme of my interview will be nursing during COVID 19 pandemic. My mom is 53 years old and has moved between Virginia and New Mexico as her dad needed to move around for work. She has a younger brother who remains in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My mother has two daughters, 19 and 15.
She has been a nurse for over 21 years and most of that time she was a charge nurse who worked on the orthopedic floor for hospital. She is now in surgical services in the pre op department and work stays, but in the past has
Transcript:
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 0:50
I’m good, thanks.
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 0:53
When did you realize you knew what career you wanted?
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 0:58
That’s a toughy. I went to school. And I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian. But and I loved science and I loved animals. But I didn’t. I didn’t pursue that for some reason about other people talk me out of it. But I always loved science. So, after I graduated from college, I worked in a laboratory, and the processing department microbiology, and I enjoyed it, but I found it boring. So, I wanted to be more with people. And I started working in a doctor’s office answering phones and making appointments. And I thought I think nursing might be a good combination for me. So, I went back to school for nursing.
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 1:40
So you wanted something kind of more hands on and like, face to face contact?
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 1:48
Yes, yes. I felt like I was making a difference in people’s lives and not just you know, in a laboratory.
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 1:53
Gotcha. Um, how long have you been a nurse?
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 1:57
22 years?
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 1:58
Okay, awesome. What is your favorite part about being a nurse?
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 2:04
Oh, that’s pretty easy. It’s never the same. Every day is different. Mainly, it’s if it’s the patients that are different. Or just things that are happening during the shift, it’s usually different. And there’s just different hats that I wear. As far as you know, like, helping people, just different hats, you know, kind of thing.
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 2:31
Gotcha. How did you handle hearing the news about the pandemic?
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 2:38
Yeah, so at the first, I was not so concerned, I thought maybe this is just blown out of proportion. It’s just another virus. But then I started seeing I got really concerned when I started seeing nurses and doctors up in New York, posting on social media, the conditions there were working underneath, with the lack of personal protective equipment and the amount of deaths that were happening. And I really felt like that was kind of the scariest moment was when I realized that, that they were going through this and that it could be headed our way. And we just didn’t know how to stop it. They didn’t know how it was transmitted. They didn’t know equipment we could use to totally protect ourselves. So, it was just very, pretty scary. I remember watching a video that of a doctor wiping down his groceries with Clorox wipes. And it just seemed crazy to me. I was standing in the kitchen going this is insane. This is a doctor that’s doing this and then I started to do it, because I’m just like, well the doctor is doing it so I should too.
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 3:55
well the doctor is doing it so you’re like, so should I
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 3:59
Yes right, again the doctors and nurses up in New York who were in the in the thick of it at the time. So yeah,
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 4:07
gotcha. Okay. Um, so those are some of your like, initial thoughts. And did you ever think it would have turned into something that would have affected so many people?
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 4:16
No, I did not. I did not because this is like the first thing in my lifetime that huge. As far as in the medical field. I mean, I remember when Ebola was a scare, and that didn’t end up being, you know, coming to the United States too much so that that wasn’t but I remember when it when that happened. I remember being kind of a little bit afraid with that. But I think that this this virus that just stumped so many medical professionals really was like the scariest. Like I said, this was the most concerned I was in my nursing career.
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 4:57
Yeah, because it’s just so unknown and You just hadn’t seen that in your career before.
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 5:02
By we didn’t know how to treat it. We didn’t know how to protect ourselves from it. We didn’t know how to treat our patients and people were dying and, and people who are healthy were being affected. And we couldn’t figure out why. So, yeah, and just this just the toll of all the extra hours that people were working, especially the ICU nurses.
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 5:25
Yeah. Gotcha. Um, so how was more of your personal life impacted by the pandemic?
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 5:33
So like, first we started quarantining, they, they put the census stuff down, which means they kind of they canceled all of the elective surgeries where I was working, because I wasn’t working in the main hospital at the time, I was working in the pre op department. And so we interviewed patients that are having surgeries. And so they canceled all the elective surgeries from like March 18, to about May 26, which is, you know, we see about 30 patients a day. And we were down to seeing about six patients a day because they were only doing the most urgent cases because people still get cancer and still have brain aneurysms still have, you know, major things happen to them that they have to have surgery, even during the pandemic, but we weren’t seeing the 30 patients a day. So she didn’t need all of our staff, my supervisor, so we actually got put on on call and I actually, I actually lost hours. Because I was home with the I was lucky to be home with my family, and you girls and your father, but I, I also wasn’t making much money, because I lost a lot of hours, but then they did end up giving us some retroactive pay for those hours that we lost. So that was nice. That’s nice. And I spent a lot of walking a lot of walking around the neighborhood. workouts and stuff like that.
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 7:08
Yeah, I remember a lots of walks.
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 7:12
Yeah, Zumba. I had two surgeries. I had two surgeries during COVID. One was plan one was unplanned. So I had to get a COVID test.
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 7:17
You said like some surgeries had to be moved back for other patients. Because there wasn’t enough staff and you had to like quarantine more severe surgeries need to be pushed back at all?
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 7:31
Yeah, so my both my surgeries were considered elective. So the one that was planned was was pushed back, but yeah, they went ahead and did the emergency ones they had the hospital had to evaluate how necessary it was. And of course, everybody coming into the hospital had to be COVID tested, especially the ones that were getting surgery had to be COVID tested. So yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 7:58
Um, so how was more of your work life impacted? I think you touched on a little bit with the kind of the uncertainty of things in the workplace. Did you want to touch on that again?
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 8:10
Yeah, yeah. So my hours were cut back and then because the surgeries were canceled, but then when they started scheduling again, at the end of May. And yeah, and 20 We got very, very busy and then I had to go in and work more. But that meant I was exposed to more people I mean, every patient that came in through those you know through our office doors was considered to be you know, we were supposed to treat them as if they had COVID So we had to wear the face shield and the masks and wear our gloves
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 8:41
and when you had a shortage of these in the beginning?
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 8:45
Yeah, we had a lot yeah, the equip the masks we didn’t even have the right masks to begin with. We didn’t have the end 95 And then they had us use the surgical masks and I mean equipment we had there was like a supply chain issue to towards the end with just lack of just supplies for like basic things, basic tests, like urine testing and LED tubes and stuff like that. So that’s kind of been the something that’s happened since the pandemic just the supply chain issues, because I guess people and factories have closed down and everything but then we got retrained, I got retrained, they had us come in and do a seminar on IV pumps and PCA pumps, which is a patient-controlled pump. Because I had been in the hospital in a while, and they thought they might need to use us like kind of in a in a disaster situation. They could call it where you have to be trained to go back into the hospital to work because had been out of the hospital for about seven years. So I hadn’t been on the floor in a while. So equipment had changed and everything. So they wanted to make sure that we were up to date on all of that. So I had to take the climate.
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 10:12
Got it. It’s a lot of change in a very short time to I feel like, yeah, I feel like everything escalated just very fast.
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 10:21 **dog come in need to cut this part out
It did. It did. I mean, yeah, I think I think I started getting trained to work back into the hospital when I was my hours got cut. So that’s what happened with that. So then they had a signup genius. And we would get weekly emails, and we could sign up to help out in the hospital, not necessarily taking care of patients, but just helping out in an ancillary kind of thing like, sitting out at the front and taking temperatures as patients came in through the emergency room or the front. And also, I did sign up and I was like a pharmacy runner, and I one night and I ran medications from the pharmacy to different floors. So, I did that to help out.
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 11:20
Very cool. Um, so without naming, like, any names or anything, how, how did your coworkers are like close friends? Like how were they their lives impacted by the pandemic?
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 11:32
So, I mean, every day I kept hearing of more and more people, having gotten it having contracted COVID…
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 11:43
for knowing someone who has and stuff
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 12:00
right, right. And then I, you know, I knew several people that lost family members, but it was kind of a shame thing and a stigma to like, it was their fault that they, like, people seem to make people feel bad. That was their fault that they, they got it, they didn’t quarantine, you know, good enough, or whatever, it just was crazy. I know. And then people who lost loved ones couldn’t, couldn’t have a proper like, funeral, you know, with all of their friends and family, you know. So that was sad. I had to postpone that.
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 12:21
So how were the hospitals, where they’re allowing visitors at all or no?
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 12:27
though they didn’t that they made it no visitor policy. Like when I went in for my surgery, I had to go in by myself. They they did have it for no visitor policy. Yes, no one was allowed, except patients like so patients were coming in through the ER and having to sit in the ER all by themselves.. Or if they had to have surgery like myself, which was later on, it was the next year in 21. Had to have just come in, you know, without anybody and that’s just so unusual.
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 13:00
yeah, I can’t even imagine that. Yeah. Um, so have you, or have you been in contact with someone who’s had covid before? And if so, like, share your experience?
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 13:13
Oh, yeah, every day, I mean, every day, I would go into work. And they would say, oh, you know, that patient that you saw, you know, a few days ago, because it would take time to get the test results back was like, at first at the hospital, they were having to send out the tests, they didn’t have a machine inside the hospital to test for COVID. So, you know, patients would try to get their COVID test done, like four to six days before their surgery or, uh huh. And then they but they would come in to see us maybe before that, like a week before that. So they would they would be tested after they left our, our place and go over and then we would find out the next day or days after, you know that, that they tested positive. So but again, like I said, we were supposed to treat everybody that came through the doors like they had COVID. But it was happening a lot in the very beginning. Like that may when we started seeing patients in the in the office again, it was happening a lot. And it was scary. I would come home, I would come home from work and I would like stripped down and wipe all my my shoes down and I would take my clothes off in the garage because I was so afraid of bring it home to your girls and your father. I didn’t want that to happen. Right.
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 14:32
Gotcha. Okay. Um, so how does the beginning of the pandemic comparative Do you think today?
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 14:40
So we’ve come so far I feel like we’ve, we have treatments. I feel like we need to get back to some sort of normal and there’s no guarantees in life. We can’t make everybody completely safe. Everybody has to do their part. If they want to get vaccinate, they should get vaccinated. I do believe in vaccinations, but I don’t believe in forcing people either. But I do believe that if people are generally unhealthy or have some condition, medical conditions, it’s better to be vaccinated if they can. And I feel like we’re in a much better place. Now. It’s not a scary place. But I think mentally it’s taken its toll on a lot of people mental health wise, because I feel like they’re still in that scary place. We’re so used to Yeah, we’re not there. We’re not there anymore. We have so many different treatments, we know so much more about COVID. And it doesn’t have to be a scary thing. And we need to have some type of natural immunity. And if you have been vaccinated, we shouldn’t be in fear, live in fear, I don’t believe in living in fear.
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 15:51
yes, very valid. So, to kind of conclude the interview, I’d like to ask a final question. That if like, if you had any life lessons from like this experience, or because I’m interested in going into the medical field, as well, like you’d like to share with me, or share with the audience?
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 16:15
Yeah. So first off, I think it’s very important to keep calm and not to panic. Because you can accomplish anything when you’re panicking. I feel like self care is the best preventative for first day unhealthy and that people should see their doctor for yearly checkups. And if you’re healthy, you have the best chance to recover from things. I believe in eating healthy and exercising and also taking care of your mental health is very important for nurses, because they are caregivers and they give and give and give. And sometimes they neglect themselves. So and then I would tell you also to follow your passion and your interest interests because statistically your work, you know, a very long time of your life. So you need to do what makes you happy, but what you can support yourself with so I think you should try a job in the hospital before you totally commit to it.
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 17:26
So to like see how things are?
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 17:32
Yeah, to see what it’s really like because there’s good and bad there’s good and bad your route and a lot of body fluids and nice smell. Yeah, there’s gonna be some things that..
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 17:50
you have to do some dirty work. haha
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 18:01
..There’s some definitely some dirty work. Yeah, but it’s also so interesting. So rewarding to it’s very rewarding. I think the best I think the best for me is when I come home from a shift and I feel like I’ve made a difference in somebody’s life. So
Interviewer (Abby Hepler) 18:01
I love that! Okay, well, thank you so much for talking with me and let me use some of your time. I hope you have a good one.
Interviewee (Jenny H.) 18:11
Thank you. You too, honey. Love you.
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