TMC PULSE

19 t m c p u l s e | j u ly 2 02 0 exact same thing with public health. Just because your house doesn't catch fire, doesn't mean you don't need the fire department. Just because you haven't had to call the police for any reason, doesn't mean you don't need a police department. We need public health just as much as these other departments because we're taking care of things that range from water purity to mosquito-borne illnesses to human-borne illnesses being spread from person to person. That is not something that is easy to do. —Cedric Dark, M.D., MPH, as told to TMC Pulse writer and columnist Shanley Pierce " We've been able to allow family members to visit their dying loved one when hospitals couldn't. " GABRIELLE STATEN, RN, BSN, an associate patient care manager for the inpatient unit at Houston Hospice, spoke to TMC Pulse on April 22, 2020. We had to implement restrictions because of COVID-19, which included an age limit on visitors. Right now, patients can only have two visitors at a time, and they have to be 13 or older. We had to put some kind of limitation on it for the safety of our patients and staff, but we wanted to make sure patients still got to be with their family members. We had the option of saying 'No visitors,' but we couldn't do that. We have a patient in his mid-40s who has three children, and one of them is only 10. But we don't want to prevent children, especially, from seeing their parents prior to their passing. So, our social worker went to our director of clinical services and our CEO and got permission for the young boy to go into the garden and see his dad through a window. We put the son through the same screening everyone goes through and brought him through a side entrance and into the garden. Because the boy was going to be masked and the dad was going to be masked, I said that the boy could go ahead and go out into the garden with the dad, because our gardens are set up for beds to go out there. So, instead of just seeing each other through the window, they were actually able to hug on each other and spend some time together. Just seeing that little boy with his dad—it took me back. I lost my mom when I was young and letting him have that moment, it means everything. It's not something we can do for every patient. Like any exception, it was on a case-by-case basis, but in a time like this I'm so thankful we can allow visitors at all. We've been able to allow family members to visit their dying loved one when hospitals couldn't. Just the fact that we were able to do something that makes a huge difference in a person's life—it was wonderful. How can you describe a moment like that? —Gabrielle Staten, RN, BSN, as told to TMC Pulse senior writer Alexandra Becker

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