Among the people on the front lines of the coronavirus fight are a group of caregivers who aren’t as familiar as doctors and nurses, but who play an essential role in helping patients breathe.
“I think we definitely have a battle-ready attitude,” said Tammy Cooper, a respiratory therapist lead and member of the Respiratory Care Society of Washington.
Respiratory therapists keep people breathing. They insert breathing tubes in patients’ windpipes and run the ventilators.
“Right now, we're in very unprecedented times. We're doing the best that we can. Our hospitals are doing the best that they can with the limited resources that we have on hand,” said Shannon Parker, a respiratory therapist and public awareness committee chair for the Respiratory Care Society of Washington.
The work has become exhausting in recent weeks and can take an emotional toll when patients succumb to coronavirus.
“Oftentimes we are the ones that are there holding the hands of the patients as they pass, along with nurses and doctors in their presence as well, and in some ways, that's an incredibly special moment, but it's also a very difficult moment and burden to carry at times,” Parker said.
What keeps them going?
“I think the most important thing right now is a lot of good self-care and practicing resilience,” Parker said.
She said after each shift she changes out of her clothes in her garage and rushes to the shower.
“The last thing I want to do is bring this infection home,” she said.
Then she prepares to return to patients’ bedsides the next day to do it all again.
“We can get through this, we are in this together, and we will get through it together as a community,” Parker said.
“I feel very lucky to be in healthcare at a time when we're so appreciated and we're so needed and we do feel that love,” Cooper added.
