Island health care professionals still on the front lines

Island resident John Reilly thought he had seen it all. But a new attitude of anger, frustration and rage directed at the physician assistant and other medical professionals he works with is a new and at times frightening development.

At times, he said, it becomes so out of hand that security guards are brought in to try and calm things down and protect staffers from possible danger.

Mr. Reilly had worked during 2020 at the national epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic at the Queens Hospital Center in Jamaica. In the early months of that year, walking into the hospital in the morning, the stench was an assault.

“The smell of feces, urine and vomit,” he remembered. “And the smell of death.” There were non-stop, hour-after-hour, 12-hour-and-more work days, a constant drumbeat of caring for the severely ill, working with a team to save them.

Now, working in Bridgehampton at the GoHealth urgent care clinic, which is part of the Northwell system, Mr. Reilly’s commute is a breeze compared to two years ago, but the work is still stressful.

The Bridgehampton site is one of the few on the South Fork performing the RT-PCR COVID tests, which are done on site and not sent to a lab for results. These tests can detect COVID at day three or four after infection, as opposed to day eight or 10 for less reliable tests.

The work load has become enormous, Mr. Reilly said, because of the lack of rapid-result and accurate testing facilities in the area, and Bridgehampton is filling the gap. More than 100 patients are being tested in an eight-hour day, he said, adding that, “In a 12-hour day, you might see 100 patients tested.”

The workload is one thing, but worse is the chaos and frustration and anger that people coming for tests bring with them, Mr. Reilly said.

“The South Fork has some of the most well-educated and wealthy people in the country who feel they’re entitled,” he added, noting that the tests are by appointment. But it’s a walk-in clinic, so people are asked to wait if they don’t have an appointment, which can be as long as three hours.

“They want what they want, when they want it,” he said. “I get it. People need tests for school, for work, for traveling. But what they don’t get is that this is a serious, world-wide pandemic.”

The South Fork has a high rate of vaccinated people, but the summer season brought many visitors from out of state who were not vaccinated. Mr. Reilly saw a surge of patients with symptoms of COVID, even before the Omicron variant emerged, noting that his facility had the first case of Omicron in the area.

Mr. Reilly said he and the staff are vigilant in keeping themselves from becoming infected. “This started as a virus and now has become an IQ test,” he said. Asked to explain, he added, “Some people are refusing to get vaccinated.”

The Bridgehampton staff hasn’t been hit too hard by infections, he said, but the other 57 offices of GoHealth in New York City and Long Island have seen significant staff shortages.

According to the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), American health care workers have seen a steep rise in violence against them. OSHA’s research shows that 31% of hospital nurses have reported an increase in violence, up from 22% in March 2021, and overall “patients are getting more abusive, and simple questions can set them off.” Hospitals, according to OSHA, have become some of the most unsafe places to work in the country.

That’s not true, thankfully, for three Island nurses the Reporter spoke to this week, although the ongoing pandemic has made their work much more difficult.

Islander Linda Kraus, a registered nurse for 32 years, who retired last July, occasionally fills in on a per diem basis at Eastern Long Island Hospital in Greenport.

She’s seen staffers transferred from their regular posts to administer testing, and also going to Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead to fill spots because nurses there are out.

Ms. Kraus said she sensed a growing frustration among the people she works with who deal with unvaccinated patients. All medical personnel have to be vaccinated, and Ms. Kraus said that, although she understands the idea of free choice, it’s exasperating “that people who don’t have a good reason are not vaccinated.”

Two other registered nurses and Island residents, Prima Evangelista and Kelly Surerus, work at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. They’re both relieved that the surge of patients overwhelming the hospital in the spring and summer of 2020 is in the past, but Omicron has brought a lesser, but still concerning return of an all-hands-on-deck situation.

Ms. Evangelista has seen staff shortages, noting that early this week she took a shift on the busy medical/surgical floor because other nurses were out sick, and she did everything from admittance to actual nursing.

Normally, the 20-year veteran nurse works in the ambulatory surgery unit where the work requires great skill, but is less stressful. “It’s a place where people leave happy,” she said.

“Half of the patients, 23 of them, on the floor I worked last night, had COVID,”  Ms. Evangelista said. “But compared to other times, it’s much better, since practically no one dies because of vaccines.”

Nurses are “very upset” about some people who they care for who are unvaccinated, she added. “We’re helping them, doing our best, and they might infect us and other people in and out of the hospital,” she said. “Yes, it is upsetting us.”

Ms. Surerus, who has also filled spots in other departments away from her post as a cardiac unit nurse, said the hospital “is very full.” She recently didn’t return home to the Island until 11 p.m., filling in on what turned out to be a much longer day than the usual 12 to 13 hours she puts in.

As for working in close quarters with patients who are unvaccinated, even with all protective and protocols in place, Ms. Surerus  said, “I’m 100% pro vaccine. But I try to treat it the same way I do for insurance: It doesn’t help to know.”

Ms. Evangelista has witnessed patients who are angry and frustrated, which comes from being frightened and enduring all the social consequences of the pandemic that is now in its second full year.

Dealing with those emotions presented by people you’re trying to help can produce the exact same emotions within yourself, she said, but training and dedication to the profession overcomes it.

Ms. Surerus agreed. “No one wants to hear you tell them you’re sorry but you have to wait,” she said. “Nurses on some floors have so many more patients, so the frustration and anxiety can grow. But the kindness and patience of the staff — which I’m always inspired by — reduce those feelings.”