Chapter 7: The Voice of The Nurse: At the Very Front of all Frontline Workers

While the world reacts to the astonishing changes that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has brought to all of our lives, nurses continue to do what they have always done. Nurses nurture and care for the sick and comfort those dying, hoping that they may experience a peaceful and dignified death. Physicians are often the ones seen at the podiums and in various media interviews issuing safety initiatives and spouting statistics. Yet, no one seems interested in the stories of nurses as a means of examining the authentic human experience and tremendous personal toll that COVID-19 takes on those affected.

The nurse is at the very front of all frontline workers. The nurse is the first to break the personal space barrier to perform the nasal swabs from those who must be screened at testing sites. It is the nurse you see covered in personal protective gear for endless hours outside in varying temperatures, triaging all potential persons who arrive at the acute-care facilities, and determining if the symptoms they present must be followed up with greater scrutiny. The nurse must spend endless 12-hour shifts at the affected patients’ bedside and enter the isolation rooms when their spouses, families, and friends are forbidden to visit. The nurses comfort the patient moment by moment when they have been intubated and can no longer breathe independently. The nurse knows the importance of tying a spouse’s wedding band to their palm or ankle as a significant personal touch in their caregiving, a tactic that no clinical textbook can teach. Yes, physicians and various other important and respected colleagues care for these patients on a 24-hour day, but only the nurse stays for every moment of that patient’s direct care.