The Opportunity to Help Healthcare Heroes

I just work HR. It’s not very glamorous. All day long I help the company process paperwork. Today, I did 3 leave forms, payroll, helped with tuition reimbursement for 2 nurses, put in schedules for traveler nurses, and filled out lots of forms for helping medical staff with work comp in case of Covid quarantining. I help to ensure they get paid and get their benefits to support their families. Sometimes I screw up. But sometimes I am glad I am there to help.

All across America and the world, the medical staff are getting hit hard by the pandemic. It is not just the disease. It is the long hours, the double shifts, the struggles between work and family. It’s working extra to make sure the patients are okay. It’s holding hands. It’s not just meeting medical needs but psychological needs and basic needs like feeding and hygiene for the people they care for.

It is wearisome to say the least.

I see it everyday. I see the exhaustion. I see the burnout and frustration. But I also see how hard they are working. I see how much extra they do with no thanks. I see the risks they take every day. I see them gowning up and getting N95 masks on that are really uncomfortable to wear. I see them coming in on days off just to make sure the facility stays open for the patients. I see them working together to keep patients safe and bringing food trays to rooms and locking down facilities and screening visitors endlessly to try to keep the covid out. I see them getting through the winter snow to work. I see them playing music for the patients to cheer them up or doing all sorts of activities to keep the patients happy.

It’s not the big things. It’s the little things. It’s the little choices they make every day that make the medical personnel and medical admin heroes. It is getting up in the dark in the morning and getting scrubs on even though you want to call in. It’s showing up and clocking in and going through all the testing requirements from upper management. It’s showing care and compassion when they could easily turn a blind eye because they are overwhelmed. It’s a thousand little decisions made over and over day after day after day after endless day to stick it out for better or in this case, worse and worse and far worse.

It is an endless battle with an invisible enemy that keeps morphing over and over again and again. It would be easy to give up hope….and so many have. But I see in my own workplace, folks that just keep going and keep hoping and keep scheduling and keep administering and keep nursing and keep feeding patients and keep watching over them at night.

In Batman, the Dawn of Justice, there is a scene when Batman runs towards danger while everyone around him is fleeing. You see the villain tear through the town causing a huge amount of destruction. Batman keeps following the villain, tracking the villain endlessly as the villain tears through the city. He even runs into the fog while everyone around him is fleeing. He is uncertain of the future and the consequences, but he goes in anyways.

I think medical people are like that but on a grander scale, a longer time scale that is even more challenging and potentially devastating to psyche and mind. There is no fantastic explosion or amazing car chase. There is no dastardly villain except an invisible strain of disease leaving massive destruction and despair in it's wake. The med staff run into the fog of an uncertain destiny only knowing that it is decision after decision after little decision to treat and maintain and prevent that will curb the violence.

They are guardians.

Explained simply, "It ain't about how you get hit, it's about how hard you get hit and keep going."

The choice to be a medical hero is not simple and often times, they are so humble they don't even want that title. Watching all this from the sidelines, their roles are way harder than I had any idea of.

It's a battle of the mind. It’s countless endless decisions to not give up even through Delta, even through Omicron, even through this new Flurona. It’s the internal decision to soldier on. It’s the decision to stay positive amidst adversity, as one of my colleagues said to simply, “Take one day at a time.” He said the key is to not look at the big picture but just focus on the day, getting through the day. That is the best advice I’ve gotten since working this job.

I’m honored to help them. I know I make mistakes sometimes with the paperwork and sometimes the procedures and processes can frustrate or seeing the medical staff burdened can make you feel god awful. But overall, I am glad I took this job. I would be lying if I said it isn't turning my hair gray.

I work with heroes. Real heroes. Not the kind that wear spandex and capes. And that’s not just rhetoric. It’s true. These are the real kind. The kind so humble they get frustrated when you call them what they are. I wonder what stories we will tell of them many years from now if we all make it through this pandemic. When I was a kid and I asked my Dad what makes a good leader.....he said it's usually the guy that doesn't want the position but steps up anyway cause there is a need. Those folks make the best leaders. Alot of these med staff are like that.

Tonight, if you just google hospitals, you will read countless articles about the hospitals and other nursing facilities under siege. My own cousin came down with Covid in Kansas. All the hospitals were full up and they were considering life-flighting him all the way to New Mexico to a hospital there. That is how bad it is for the medical facilities right now.

If there was any time the medical staff in America could use your thoughts and prayers, it’s now. Consider what you can do to help them. Some of these folks need car repairs or help with their families or could use a good home-cooked meal after a double shift. They need volunteers too at the nursing facilities to help with patient morale or maybe little items to make the patients happy like a sudoku book or a balloon or maybe a potted flower. What little thing can you do to offer to help them?

Heroes run towards danger even when others run the opposite direction. It’s a gut decision, a split second decision. It's not a boastful self-sacrifice. They just do it. That’s how you know someone is a hero.

As they say in the St. Jude’s hospital commercial, “Hope is when you never give up.” Medical people offer hope....from the EMTs to the LNAs to the LPNs and RNs to the DRs and Nurse Practitioners and all the supporting medical staff.

Remember, the stars shine brightest only on the darkest of nights....and these people are definitely All-stars whether they want it stated or not.