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Mississippi health officials say there are no longer intensive care beds available at many of the state’s top hospitals. The increase in the number of Covid-19 patients and deaths in the community has become overwhelming for Nichole Atherton, intensive care nurse at Singing River Ocean Springs Hospital.
After working during the pandemic, Atherton quit his job last week.
“We must have watched a lot of people die,” she told CNN on Tuesday. “As a nurse you are called to save people and help people get better and sometimes it feels like we are fighting a losing battle.”
She said Mississippi has a high hospitalization rate and a low number of people getting vaccinated. This gives the impression that healthcare workers “are fighting an unsuccessful war,” she said.
Atherton said of the 12 people in the 12-bed intensive care unit she works in, all are sick with Covid-19 and not all are vaccinated.
She said one of the most heartbreaking stories she’s seen recently was about a new mother who was due to meet her baby for the first time on a video call.
“We lifted the phone so she could see the baby for the first time and it’s heartbreaking,” Atherton said.
“We are trained to face death, as a nurse, and to help people die with dignity when that time comes, but to see so many dead day after day during this long period of time – it becomes unbearable. and the trauma that comes with it gives you, it’s not something that goes away easily, ”she added.
Atherton said she wants people to choose to wear masks and get vaccinated because veteran nurses won’t be able to cope with this level of trauma indefinitely. As a result, nurses caring for patients will become less and less experienced, which she says will be “extremely dangerous”.
“Calling us heroes but not doing what you can to protect yourself and us, these are just words and words don’t save lives, actions save lives,” she said.
“Those people who do not believe in it or choose not to be vaccinated, when they cannot breathe, they always show up to the hospital and we always take care of them and treat them with absolute respect and do not want not that they feel judged for the decisions they have made about their health. But I want them to understand that they are also putting our lives at risk and that we have children to come home with, ” Atherton said.
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