Cooperative Living January 2021 - 15

EASTERN SHORE RURAL HEALTH SYSTEM INC.
Quality Family Healthcare
Dr. Nicole Marsh is clinical director at
the center. A pediatrician and Eastern
Shore native, she has been with
Eastern Shore Rural Health since 2012.
Jennifer Lucas is a board-certified physician
assistant working with children and adults.
An Eastern Shore native, she has been with
the company for about six-and-a-half years.
Christine Waldenmaier is a nurse working
primarily with older patients. She has lived
on the Eastern Shore for more than 35 years
and been with the company for five years.
There was no bright line with COVID-19 at Onley
Community Health Center, where COVID-19 lurked
one day and took over the next. Instead, the disease
slowly infiltrated the Eastern Shore and changed
the center's procedures.
JENNIFER LUCAS: Probably in the January-February time
frame, it was like, " OK, we need to keep this on our radar and
look out for this because it's coming. " That started to change
when we started to shift our operations here. We split up into
teams - providers taking care of potential COVID patients
in the beginning, providers taking care of sick but non-COVID
patients, and providers taking care of well patients who
needed routine things like checks for blood thinners. That
way we were protecting ourselves. If an employee got sick,
we weren't all out at the same time. But it quickly changed
and we all became COVID providers for the most part. We
did a lot of telehealth at that point.
NICOLE MARSH: When COVID hit, we had to slow down,
reduce the number of patients seen and figure out how we
were still going to take care of people. That was an abrupt
change in how we operate. That was a little bit stressful, to
take care of people if we couldn't physically see them because
we didn't have enough personal protective equipment. There
wasn't an instruction manual on how to deal with this. It
was a matter of everybody coming up with one.
LUCAS: We had a staff meeting one morning that was like,
" How are we going to do this? "
CHRISTINE WALDENMAIER: It was a total,
total change, more than we would have ever
expected. The place was pretty much emptied
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out and we went to totally telemed. We had a hall designated
just for COVID. I happened to be assigned to the COVID
hall, so we were doing testing outside the building, where we
swabbed them. The big thing was that we cleaned and cleaned
and cleaned everything we touched. I mopped the floors
because they wouldn't let the cleaning people come down the
hall. We were double gloving; just trying to keep the virus
out of the building as much as we could.
Exposure to infected patients caused some changes
for health care personnel, as well. They were
obligated to protect their patients, but also their
families and themselves.
WALDENMAIER: As a health care person, you're exposed
to everybody. So there's always a little nagging wonder in the
back of your mind: " Do I have it? " Every time you end up
with a sore throat or a sniffly nose, it's " Oh no, here it comes. "
MARSH: I see kids, so I have to be in their faces. There's no
way to check their ears without being close to them. But it
does add a note of caution that I never had before. I wear a
shield and safety goggles and a mask, but that scares the kids.
LUCAS: Everyone started wearing scrubs and not dressing
in regular clothes. You wore things that could go right in the
wash. I would come home, take my clothes off, throw them
in the washer and run in the shower. The kids were at home
[girls age 4 and 1 at the time] because day care was closed.
They'd be in the living room, so I'd come in the back door and
run into the shower before they realized I was home. Then I
was like, " Now we can see each other. "
January 2021 | Cooperative Living | 13
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Cooperative Living January 2021

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