A week later, when his oxygen levels started to drop, Hurley watched from a distance her husband, James, left the house and got into the ambulance alone. Hurley followed him in the family car while the ambulance took him to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital near Plymouth, Massachusetts.
“Leaving my husband in an ambulance outside a hospital and saying, ‘I love you, but I don’t know if I’m going to see you again’ is scary,” said Hurley.
Hurley knew how quickly a patient’s condition with Covid-19 could get worse. She lost her grandmother to the coronavirus in November and saw her father and grandfather survive the disease.
So, Hurley sat in her Jeep Wrangler in a dark, icy hospital parking lot for the five days her husband stayed in the hospital, looking at the spot of light that was her husband’s window. There, she could watch him when he got up to use the bathroom and see the nurses who attended him.
After an initial increase, James’ condition worsened and he stopped talking on the phone.
“I know the hospital was so busy with so many patients and the nurses were working so hard that I was unable to disturb them,” said Hurley. “When he failed to speak to me, I was terrified because I didn’t know what was going to happen next.”
Instead, her lifeline became a doctor who was not in her husband’s care.
Providing more than medical care to patients
Dr. Ben Moor had recently received his second dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine. After being fully vaccinated in early January, he began visiting Covid-19 patients at his hospital.
As an anesthesiologist, Moor has intubated severely ill Covid-19 patients during the pandemic.
During what he describes as a “very, very medicalized process”, Moor started taking a moment before intubation to think about the person in front of him.
“I kind of have this ritual of, you know, holding the patient’s hand only briefly,” said Moor. “I think there is a value and a need to recognize this moment, that this may be the last interaction that person has. This may be the last hand that shakes theirs.”
After making some impromptu visits to Covid patients, Moor emailed colleagues at the hospital, asking if any of those who had been fully vaccinated would be willing to join him for informal visits to Covid patients after their shifts. finished.
Now he has a spreadsheet with the names of 46 volunteers in what has become a pilot program that he runs with another hospital employee. Some of the volunteers are waiting to be vaccinated completely, their names turn green on the spreadsheet after receiving the second dose and a waiting period for follow-up. They offer to visit a unit outside working hours, still wearing several layers of personal protective equipment.
Cheryl Carmody, an occupational therapist at the hospital, signed up immediately when she received Moor’s email, but was only released to volunteer a week and a half ago. Since then, she said she visited three different patients.
Some patients want to chat or see pictures of pets and family members. Others prefer to watch television while the volunteer is sitting in the living room, said Carmody and Moor.
As an occupational therapist, part of Carmody’s role includes helping Covid-19 patients prepare for the physical challenge of returning home.
“Talking to them is the most important thing we can do. Let them know that we are here to show compassion and we can be there with them as a person, not as a healthcare professional,” Carmody, who had Covid -19 at the beginning of the pandemic, he said.
‘Just doing good things’
Moor sees visits as an intangible but vital part of care, necessary for both the patient and the volunteer.
“These are the people who, last year, in the last 10 months, gave their all. And then you give them the opportunity to stay behind, and they kind of thrive, ”said Moor. “And it’s giving something back, some control or agency, over this terrible thing that we’ve been through.”
Instead of going in and out to minimize contact during care, Moor said the vaccine allows healthcare professionals the luxury of finally “just doing what is good”, while opening up casual communication between patients and imprisoned family members. out of the hospital.
For Hurley, this meant receiving messages from Moor, warning her that he left coffee and a donut for her husband, who was sleeping peacefully.
James returned home in late January. After a follow-up quarantine to protect one of her immunocompromised children, Hurley met with her husband on Friday. His children followed him on Saturday, hugging his father for the first time in more than a month, she said.
Hurley has been doing a thorough cleaning of her home, but she is unable to clean the kiss marks that her family left on the windows of the house while her husband was quarantined.
“They are a mess, but they are still there,” said Hurley.
Hurley agreed with Moor’s hope that similar volunteer programs will spread to other hospitals.
“I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Moor because, if heaven forbade me that something had happened to my husband, I would never have spoken to him again,” she said. “And it was he who allowed me to speak to him.”