Searching for humanity in the time of COVID

Excerpt

The COVID pandemic is a crisis that has significantly challenged patients, families, and healthcare workers. By enforcing strict isolation and no visitors, hospitals limited the spread of disease, but inadvertently wrought the devastation of patients dying alone. Many healthcare workers demonstrated great compassion, remaining at a patient’s bedside, helping to connect them with loved ones, and even holding their hands as they died. Intensive Care Units devised ways to limit potential contamination—confining patients behind sealed glass doors, keeping IV pumps and dialysis machines outside, and minimizing entry into rooms to only when absolutely essential—thereby increasing the isolation of the living. The significance of this separation on patients and on their loved ones has been widely recognized. But the toll and stress this extensive isolation and disconnect has had on providers has not been as well reported. In our practice, a relatively simple change not only made an impact on the families but also made a profound difference to everyone involved in the care of our patients. …