Tuesday has coincided with a five-year mentor since World Health Organization has described Covid-19.
Some of the first people who felt the influence were health are health care workers in Chicago and around the country and the world. Five years later, some health care looked at those first days of the epidemic – and some changes to health care here to survive.
When entering the Medical Care Unit at North Westin Memorial Hospital, there is usually found only in times of style and routine.
But five years ago, the space was in the process of shifting to the intensive care unit in the northwest of the west – at a time when everything was new and unknown.
“The first days were very frightening,” said Emily Collins, northwestern nurse. “I remember looking at the glass doors we have in our intensive care unit and thinking,” Well, this will be great. “
It was greater than that employees could have imagined. They found themselves forced to make personal sacrifices.
“I spent nearly a year far from my family,” Collins said.
Some employees had to get out of their homes.
“My son suffers from childhood asthma, so the hospital allowed us to stay in hotels,” said Ravi Fernando, a respiratory therapist in North Westren. “So I was in a hotel for about three and a half months. I never went home.”
Fernando volunteered to work on the front lines.
“It was a little frightening at first, because we do not know if there was a treatment for this epidemic,” he said.
With a five -year passage, northern Western medical staff said it was difficult to believe that a lot of time has passed.
“It is a crazy feeling,” Collins said. “To some extent, it looks like it happened, and on the contrary, it seems that it was 20 years ago.”
This feeling is common.
“Everyone was saying that it seemed as if it were yesterday, and he also felt that it was long ago,” said Dr. Susan Russell, Director of the Medical Care Unit in North Western.
This may be some experiences with them – rewriting familiar feelings during the last nails in respiratory disease such as RSV and influenza.
“As you know, there is still sometimes and still some cases and accidents that I love,” said Collins.
The World Health Organization said that Kovid was no longer commensurate with the definition of “public health emergency” in May 2023.
NorthWestern has started a peer support program to help the front lines workers during the most difficult times. The leaders said that this program continues and was expanded to include more employees.
