Noreen Graham, RN, an experienced Intensive Care Unit nurse, was deeply moved when she witnessed the compassionate actions of a young nurse caring for a COVID-19 patient.
Members of the Community Medical Center team in Toms River have been tirelessly caring for patients, and one another, as they respond to the coronavirus pandemic. Throughout it all, they have responded with strength, skill, and compassion, and shown who they truly are – heroes.
Transcription
On any given day, I’m anywhere in the hospital. I just happened to be walking through the ICU and a nurse that I know, a young nurse was in the patient’s room, and I’m observing her, holding the patient’s hands, and I said to the other nurses, ‘you know, what’s going on? Why is she in there so long?’ Because we’ve been trying to keep our times in these rooms to a minimum for exposure, and I know she’s a young mother, so I said ‘Why is she in there, what’s going on?’ and they told me that the patient is dying, so a lot of people are dying alone, and it’s very heart-wrenching, but for her to take that time, and risk that exposure, holding that gentleman’s hand, and you could just see the emotion in her face while it was going on, it was just heart-wrenching, and I give her a lot of credit because that’s a very hard thing to do, even for senior nurses, but there’s been a lot of young nurses that are really struggling through this, seeing a lot of deaths that we don’t usually see, and I really give kudos to her for sticking it out and staying there, and holding his hand and you could really see it on her face what her heart was feeling.