Pictured from left: SCKMC CEO Jeff Bowman, Theresa Dent and Dr. Joseph O’Donnell. (Photo courtesy SCKMC)
An Ark City travel nurse who traveled to New York City to help aid those with coronavirus was awarded by Integrity Healthcare Professionals with the Lifesaver Award, according to a press release from South Central Kansas Medical Center.
The recipient was Theresa Dent, who also works at SCKMC, located just north of Ark City on U.S. 77.
“The decision to award Mrs. Dent was made following her heroic actions as a nurse, protecting Americans against the COVID-19 pandemic,” the press release said.
Amid the current healthcare crisis, travel nurses have been a saving grace for many hospitals, SCKMC said.
Staff shortages and high volumes of patients needing immediate medical care have placed high amounts of stress on medical facilities, and many have sought help from outside medical professionals, including travel nurses.
Before COVID-19, travel nurses were usually called during the busier times of the year, such as cold and flu season.
Dent has been a travel nurse long before the COVID-19 outbreak, the hospital said. On the onset of the pandemic, she was stationed in California finishing a work contract.
“I actually cut the contract short by three days due to the uncertainty of the flight availability, and the unusual decreased census at the time,” Dent said. “I got home to Kansas, as the news showed the increased need for nurses in the ‘hot zone’ in New York. I called the number to sign up to go and was on the plane headed to NYC less than 24 hours later.”
The early onset of cases in large urban areas on the east coast prompted immediate calls for support.
NYC has recorded nearly 250,000 confirmed positive cases and has suffered nearly 25,000 deaths so far since the pandemic began.
A vast majority of New York City’s positive cases were detected March 13 through April 30, leading to approximately 50,000 hospitalizations in a six-week time frame.
Most hospitals in the United States were not prepared for the onset of COVID-19, according to the SCKMC.
Many healthcare centers have had to create “makeshift” COVID-19 treatment rooms that have been adapted to create negative pressure and better serve to protect the workers from exposure.
Workers have also been challenged to step into roles that they might not have been experienced with in the past.
“At my assignment, in a short period of time I had noticed that most of the ‘charge nurses’ were actually just staff nurses, or new nurses,” Dent said. “With time I found that they were in those positions due to the regular staff from these positions were sick with the virus or were scared to come back to work because of it.”
In the first week of August, more than 900 healthcare workers died, according to Kaiser Health News.
“During the time I was at this facility they had a charge nurse that contracted the virus, was hospitalized at a different hospital, incubated and died.” Dent said. “Most of their regular staff that had been diagnosed with COVID-19 had returned to work by the end of my eight weeks there and had made full recoveries.”
Shayla McDonald, the Director of Risk Management and Quality Performance at SCKMC, said Dent’s experience has been key for approaching the virus in Cowley County.
“Theresa has been instrumental in making our COVID-19 unit the best it can be for our patients, as well as the staff,” McDonald said. “She not only has the real-world experience, being a hero in NYC at the peak of this pandemic, she has come back to our rural community to share that wealth of knowledge.
“We are so appreciative and grateful to have her on our team.”
Dent said fellow healthcare workers must do their best to be ready.
“Wear your PPE. Wash your hands,” she said. “Do not forget that the people we care for will be isolated from their family and loved ones with or without COVID-19 so long as they are sick. So please be kind, understanding, and patient.
“Finally, don’t forget to take care of number one. If you are not well, you cannot help others get well.”
