Marshfield (OnFocus) – Madeline De Smet, a 2017 Columbus Catholic High School graduate, has been working tirelessly with COVID-19 patients at Aurora Sinai in downtown Milwaukee since February. She is currently working as a Certified Nursing Assistant pursuing her BSN through UW Milwaukee and expects to graduate in 2021.
“On our typical unit I would take vitals, provide patient cares, and help with ambulation, just to name a few. In March, my unit at Sinai became the official COVID unit, where patients who were not being admitted to ICU would be admitted to our floor,” said De Smet. “While having the opportunity to work with Covid-19, I have seen how this virus effects every person differently.”
She said that while some patients are fairly independent, others require intensive care.
“Often, a lot of the patients are on some level of oxygen due to the impact of the virus on the respiratory system,” she said. “On my floor, it was rare to see a patient on more than 3 liters of oxygen until we became a COVID unit where multiple patients would be on 5 to 15 liters.”
Another change since COVID, she said, was going from caring for six to ten patients down to five at most because staffing would have to be increased to help limit staff’s exposure to the virus. The PPE shortage was also a significant problem.
“At the start of this pandemic, we started to become short on PPE due to the high demand during the time. This then caused us to only wear the same N95 mask until it was visibly soiled, broken, or had a bodily get on it,” she said. “I had my N95 mask for over a month before getting a new mask about a week ago.”
When she first started working with COVID patients, De Smet was nervous not only for her own safety, but for the safety of those around her.
“After seeing how sick the patients in my unit were, I feared spreading this virus to others and often contemplated whether it was really worth putting myself and others at risk,” she said. “I then realized that I can’t take for granted how lucky I am to still be healthy and be able to go into my job every day. This made my decision easy because I realized that this pandemic would never improve until we started to fight it and heal those who are already sick.”
With visitors not allowed to see COVID patients, De Smet struggled with how to comfort patients in the unit.
“Often patients would beg to see their family during their stay and it was truly heartbreaking when I would see patients have tears in their eyes when I had to tell them visitors are not allowed,” she said. “I also struggled when patients asked why they weren’t getting better after being there for an extended amount of time and I could not give them an answer as to why, due to the unknown of this virus.”
“I hate to see patients struggle and severely sick but often that was all I would see for days,” she added. “I went from working on a unit that would maybe have one to two deaths per year, to having about four within four weeks of becoming a COVID unit.”
As time has progressed and policies pertaining to the virus have changed, the amount of admissions to De Smet’s unit has slowly started to decrease.
“We started with having about 30 COVID-19 patients on the unit to now having around 11,” she said. “The situation has improved, which I give credit to social distancing because it has helped to prevent the spread of COVID throughout our communities.”
Having witnessed firsthand different healthcare providers working tirelessly to bring an end to the virus, De Smet credits the team efforts of doctors, nurses, HUCs, CNAs, EVS, etc, for handling the situation to the best of their abilities.
“This has really been a team effort from the start,” she said. “From my own experience, my supervisor and nurse educator have done a great job on handling everything that had been thrown at them so quickly with the sudden unit change. All the nurses and nursing assistants were all willing to adapt to the change in setting and working conditions.”
“This has been a life changing experience for me, that I will forever be grateful to have been a part of,” she added. “If there is one takeaway I hope that people get from this, it’s that they won’t take for granted the life and health they have been given because often no one sees it coming when it is suddenly all taken away from you. That’s what this virus has done to a lot of people, where they often feel out of control due to the effects this virus has on their bodies.”
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Author: Breanna Butler
Breanna Butler is an award-winning multimedia producer born and raised in Central Wisconsin. She enjoys exploring and writing about the community. She lives in Marshfield with her husband and furry family.
