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Through tears, Randev recalled trying to tell an elderly patient with early signs of dementia, through layers of PPE, that he could not yet go home to his family. “You want to smile, you want to hold their hand,” she said.
You want to smile, you want to hold their hand
Occasionally, frail COVID-19 patients fall out of bed, said Emily Muzyka, a nurse at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Normally, nurses would rush to help, but now, Muzyka says, they must pause to first put on gowns, masks and gloves.
Muzyka has held patients’ hands through final breaths in the past, but things have changed.
“If I have to do that now,” she said, “it will be through gloves.”
