courtesy of SSM Health/Stephanie Zoller Mueller
With more than 350 cases of COVID-19, SSM Health DePaul Hospital in Bridgeton has been one of the hardest-hit hospitals in Missouri. Even before St. Louis saw its first positive case, the staff started aggressively planning for the worst, right down to rewiring the ICU to stop air from recirculating.
President Ellis Hawkins says the culture changed overnight, with staff from across the hospital coming together to unite and conquer: “The first three to five weeks were literally like building a plane while it was taking off.”
As COVID-19 patients started coming, DePaul adjusted to the new normal, which was changing by the hour. In the ICU, this meant working almost full time in personal protective equipment, including bulky respirators that made the wearers’ faces break out and sweaty isolation gowns. Hawkins remembers watching as staff in head-to-toe PPE calmly cared for some of the sickest patients they’d ever seen. When a patient was released, the nurses played The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun.”
Dr. Justin Grady, who works in the ICU, recalls desperately trying to treat a range of symptoms—high fevers, infections, lack of oxygen—because the disease itself is so inconsistent and unknown. Grady’s biggest fear was bringing it home to his wife, 3-year-old, or twin 1-year-olds. He distanced himself for weeks, living in the basement and guest room. “I got my will and testament together,” he says, “and I just turned 35.”
“Those staff were doing God’s work,” Hawkins says, “putting their own health on the line, like it was business as usual.”
