In a small country hospital, COVID-19 is more intimate

Jeff Roberson and Jim Salter
Associated Press

Memphis, Missouri-Most of his movements are well known during the coronavirus era as Dr. Shane Wilson patrols in a small 25-bed hospital in the northeastern countryside of Missouri. Mask and gloves. Zippered plastic walls between the corridors. Hand sanitizer as he enters and exits each room.

But one is quite different. Born and raised in a town of only 1,800 people, Wilson knows most patients by first name.

After visiting a woman who was a PE teacher at school, I laughed and remembered the day when I found myself smoking at school and had my friend pick up a cigarette butt as a punishment. Another man was in the middle of a soybean harvest when he was ill and couldn’t finish.

In November Wilson treated his father. The father worked with his wife in the same hospital. Elder Wilson, 74, has recovered from the virus.

The coronavirus pandemic first struck urban areas, but the fall surge has also devastated the American countryside. Today, an average of more than 170,000 new cases occur daily in the United States, causing great damage, from the largest hospitals to smaller hospitals such as the Scottish County Hospital.

The tragedy is smaller and more intimate here. Everyone knows everyone.

With a population of 1,800 in Memphis, Missouri, it is the largest, mile-long town surrounded by cornfields on the northeastern corner of Missouri. Agriculture occupies most of the work in the region. The area is so far away that the nearest traffic lights, McDonald’s and Wal-Mart, are all an hour away, said hospital public relations director Alisa Kiger.

People usually come to hospitals from six surrounding counties to treat farm and sports injuries, chest pain, and the flu. There is usually plenty of space.

not now. A small hospital with about 6 doctors and 75 nurses out of 142 full-time staff is at stake. Cases of COVID-19 have increased significantly in the area, and all available beds are typically used.

Doctors at Scottish County Hospital have already made difficult and often tragic decisions about who they can accept. Wilson said a moderately ill person returned home with oxygen and said, “If things get worse, we’ll be back, but we don’t. Where to put you, and we’ll transfer you. I don’t have a place. “

On the other hand, labor shortages are serious, and hospitals are calling on anyone with medical experience, including retirees, to go to work. Some have responded and are already on staff, including a woman working as an associate nurse studying to become a registered nurse.

Elizabeth Gaffy, the hospital’s chief nurse, said nurses work up to 24 hours extra each week. Gaffy sometimes sleeps in the office instead of going home between shifts.

“We’re almost 100% likely to surge,” Gaffy said. “So it’s all hands-on deck.”

She said it’s especially hard to see friends and relatives suffering from illness while the majority of the community hasn’t taken it seriously yet.

“We spend time indoors to take care of these highly ill people, then we go outdoors and tell us that the illness is hoax or doesn’t really exist. I hear that, “Gaffy said.

Glen Cowell wasn’t very sure about the virus until it knelt him down.

At the age of 68, Cowell still works on a 500-acre farm near Memphis and is healthy enough not to take daily medication. He began to feel sick around November 11, tested positive four days later, and then gradually became ill. On November 18, an ambulance took him to the emergency room. He was treated and went home.

“They had only one bed left and didn’t feel sick enough to take someone else’s bed,” Cowell said.

But soon, I had difficulty breathing and started nausea. To make matters worse, his temperature soared to 104 degrees. A long-term hospitalization followed another ambulance trip.

He doesn’t know where he got the virus, but admits he wasn’t overly cautious.

“I’m as independent as a pig on ice,” Cowell said. “I was pretty vague about it. If Dollar General said I had to wear a mask, I wore a mask. If I walked across the street to Farm & Home, I would Did not wear a mask. I was really unaware of the fact that it could catch you and not let go. “

Brock Slavbach, senior vice president of the National Rural Health Association, based in the suburbs of Kansas City, said he needed “space, staff, staff” to run a rural hospital. “If you don’t have any of these three, you’re really confused,” he said, saying that many hospitals are facing shortages in all three areas.

Wilson spent hours on the phone one day trying to find a larger hospital that could provide a life-saving emergency that could save a man in his 50s who was seriously ill with the virus.

By the time the University of Iowa Hospital agreed to take him, it was clear that he would not be able to survive the 120-mile trip.

“I don’t know if taking him to Iowa City made a difference,” Wilson said. “Sometimes people get sick enough to survive. That’s the reality we have to deal with. But sitting here hand in hand is still quite frustrating.”