‘Stupid or Brave?’ New Hampshire Health Care Workers Face Moral Dilemmas During Pandemic

Health care workers in New Hampshire are at the center of the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Patients rely on them, hospitals scramble to buy gear to protect them, and citizens laud them as heroes in this national crisis.

But what is it like be a health care worker right now? NHPR’s Jason Moon reports the experience of working on the front lines during this pandemic can be complicated.

Glen Kimball is a respiratory therapist at one of the state’s largest hospitals. NHPR is not disclosing which one, because Kimball wasn’t authorized to speak on behalf of the hospital.

Kimball has done this job for 38 years. But he wasn’t prepared for what happened last month when he came back to work after a few days off. When he arrived, he found his hospital completely transformed.

The ICU was cordoned off with plastic sheets. It was chaotic. Staff were running into rooms to give updates by word of mouth. Twenty minutes later, those updates would change.

“It was a horrible day,” said Kimball. “I literally was shaking and couldn’t stop shaking and couldn’t focus, initially, on what I needed to do and I finally realized: I have to get control of this because I can’t care for patients safely in this way.”

Kimball called his wife who helped calm him down. But the intensity at work only increased over the following week. The world was going into lockdown. The patients were getting really sick.

Read the rest of this story at NHPR’s website.