I'm Donna Lowry, host of Lawmakers on GPB with your "What You Need To Know
Coronavirus," web series from Georgia Public Broadcasting. We know that there
are people from Atlanta who are going to New York to take care of the people who
are dealing with the corona virus and joining me right now is one of those
wonderful heroes. Her name is Cassie Marcelus and she is a member of the
Emergency Response Team. Hi Cassie. Hi. You are just getting off work-
tell us a little bit about that. Where you are and what you're doing. So I'm-
we're in New York City and I'm a part of the emergency response team, I'm working
through a company by the name of Crucial Staffing and basically the state of New
York needs help, and so that's who we work for.
We work for the state of New York and we've come from all over and there are a
lot of people that came from the south, a lot of people that came from Atlanta to
help out here with the- it's kind of like a pandemic within a pandemic I've never
seen anything like it. Let's talk about your location, first of
all you left what almost four or five days ago? Yes I left on- well I found out
about it on Wednesday they wanted me to come on Thursday, I was like that's a bit
too soon so I was on the plane on Friday morning at 6 a.m. and I took my first- I
was in the hospital Saturday morning at 7 a.m.
Tell me what a typical day looks like for you and I know you've been recording
it on Facebook live, so tell us how that what that looks like. Yes
So we have roll call in the mornings about 5:45 for the morning shifts and
that's where they tell you where you're going to be because we're at hospitals
all over New York. Not only are we're in hospitals, were in prisons,
we're in clinics a lot of us are doing drive-through swabbing so we're all over
New York. I understand there is a makeshift hospital that's been put up
now they're thinking about staffing the convention center because hospitals are
full of other hospitals patients and thats basically what's going on. I was
assigned to the night shift, that's why I'm getting off, I was
assigned to the night shift and we show up at 5:45,
we're bused to the different locations and I go over that a lot in my Facebook
lives as well because people want to know. They're like what does it really
look like not just what they see on the media like what is it like day-to-day
for you. So we're up at- we leave at 5:45 on the buses, we have police
escorts, and- we I'm sorry about that. We have- we're up at 5:45 p.m., we have-
they have police escorts, the busing system and they transport you to the
different hospitals. And I'm at- the name of mine is North
North Central Bronx is the name of hospital, it's a small 232 bed
hospital but what it is, is that the patients from all the other hospitals
are ended up coming to this hospital because the other hospitals are running
out of room. So last night typically we it was a nursery, all this time it's been
a nursery, so they turned this nursery into a makeshift triage center for
patients that were coming from a hospital in Queens. So we ended up having
COVID patients in the nursery. Let's talk a little bit about it and you
describe it in your Facebook live exactly what you have to do to be safe
and it involves even something at the hotel where you're staying with your
feet in your shoes. Yes so we're expected- when we come back from work we're
expected to come in straight in and go straight to our rooms we're not to go
anywhere else, we're to just go straight to our rooms. But before that they have a
system there, I think it's ultraviolet lights and so
we stand on top of these feet thingies I call them, the foot cleaners and we stand
on top of those for a certain amount of time and it clicks you and tells you
when it goes off and so is decontaminates our feet so that you can
continue to walk and go to the elevators come up to the room, you're expected to
take a shower right away, don't go anywhere else in the hotel. And then are
you allowed to even get together? You mostly- actually I think you're probably
just exhausted aren't you? Yes we are a typical day with the transport to and
from our workstations can be 14 to 15 hours long, and that's everyday. We're
expected to work 21 days in a row before we before were able to have a day off.
Wow let's talk about the PPE's, that's been a real concern with people. Yes
Do you have them? I do- we do. I'm very proud to say that, I know that we've
heard horror stories and those stories are in fact real but I think because of
those stories they executed and got us the supplies that we needed. I've never
been without, I've always had my N95 mask, it's right here and this is one
that I use- I'll use it again but I don't have to when I get to the hospital if I
want another one I can get it. And then I usually put another mask on top of that
mask. So I'll use my N95 that's closest to my face and then I'll put
another mask on top of that one and then you see I cover my head anyway just
because all the way down to my ears and then I'll put another disposable cover
on top of my head. And then we have the gowns, we have the eye shields, goggles,
they have several different styles and then we glove up, and then we have shoe
covers. There's also even if you're in a high high high risk area like ICU's
and PACU's, they have paper scrubs as well so you can just take those off
at the end of your shift and throw them away. How do you feel about doing this? I
know you've been a part of the mobile care team, the emergency response team
for a while. What is this like compared to what you've done in the past? It's
like nothing I've ever seen because of the way it touches your heart. I mean
I've done- I've been a nurse for 29 years, so I've done a gamut of things in the
field of Nursing, from ER, ICU, to Burn unit, you know I've worked at our beloved
Grady so you know the word on the street is if you're a Grady nurse you can do
anything and that's true but this is- the separation like for instance these
people were were shipped over from Queens because there was nowhere else to
go and a lot of their families didn't even know where they were. They had no
clue, their cell phones are gone, or they're not charged, or they're just
incapacitated to the point so whereas they can't talk anyway. And so you know
you got families, friends calling they didn't even know where their loved ones
went and they've been gone for hours or for days. Husband and wives are
showing up and they're not able to be in the room together and they both have COVID.
You know or you got you know you have us whereas we can't go back to our
families, even when I get my two days off- I won't be-
even if I decide to come- if New York lets me out and I'm able to come home to
Atlanta then I mean I I'll just be at my place because I won't be able to go
anywhere I'll have to self quarantine and that's okay because I'd rather have
everybody else safe then for me to you know experience any kind of joy during
this time. So you feel pretty safe with what the what you're wearing and what
you're doing and I guess you told me your heart is in this. Talk about that.
Most definitely, I am gainfully employed, I'm still- I still work and I decided to
take leave of absence from my job and I I wanted to come here. And so I don't
know what that means for me back home but it just really doesn't matter
because I had to follow my heart. And I- doors were open, I got the call on a
Wednesday about the opportunity, they were like can you come tomorrow, I was
like no I can't come tomorrow so I was here on Friday and everything just lined
up it was what they said it was as far as you're here. We have great
accommodations, I feel safe, we have security around the clock , we have food,
Starbucks shows up in the mornings with danishes and coffee every
single morning and then they have food around 5:00 p.m. for the night shift you
know because we're not able to get out a lot so we use a lot of delivery
services and that's fine. But just to know that people are going
to extra mile to do other things- to make it- to make it as comfortable as we
can. It's not, it's not perfect it's not an ideal situation, but that's what you
signed up for and most of the time that's what that's what a nurses heart
is all about, you just get the job done. Yeah and you'll be there 21 days? Atleast.
Let's talk one final question about the what you're doing. What are you
seeing in terms of how sick the patients are you're treating? Very, literally
before your eyes so is not to get too technical about it but a person can a
person- like last night I had patients that range from age of 30 to 81 and I
had six patients in a room that was probably-
maybe 10 by 15 like the size of a small baby nursery and so they're on
stretchers, there's no pillows, I mean there's- I mean as
far as- because they're- they're running out of supplies, those are considered
luxuries. We're in the mode where we're trying to save your life and nothing
else matters so everything is makeshift. You know we have to make shift the
supply station, make shift a clean area on a dirty area, you know so
as to keep the flow of traffic going but and literally right before your eyes
they can come in everybody comes in with pneumonia type symptoms so that's why
all of the protective gear is so important. Everybody's coughing, everybody's
sick, everybody has some kind of sputum going on and it's- the sad part
about it is if you come in and you're swabbed because we think you're COVID, so
we're ruling out that you're COVID well you're still in a room with everybody
else who is COVID so nine times out of ten even if you're not, you're going to be.
Wow. And there's nothing that we can do to help that. Yeah and you are there,
you're the care person, you said their families aren't around so you are the
next best thing so making them feel comfortable I'm sure they're- they're sad,
they're scared, talk about that a little bit. We do a lot of praying, we do a lot
of praying both with the patients with ourselves, the nurses, on our bus on the
way over we say prayers, we quote scriptures on our bus every single day
over from our bus drivers all the way to every single solitary staff and there's
different- like there's RN's here, there is a nurse practitioners are here,
they're getting extended rights now. We really want to mention that because
that's really big, they've been kind of held back from that but they're
extending their right so they're able to do more with their practice because
doctors are short. So all the nurse practitioners are having to step in, so
we have a mixture here and so we pray a lot, we laugh a lot, laughter is good-
you know we make jokes we try to do something to to lighten our burden
outside of our patients, of course we wouldn't laugh in front of them, but and
we do a lot of speaking to the families and we encourage them say hey now that
you know it call us back wake up in the middle of night we're
here we're up call us back if you get to thinking about it I can let you know how
he is because it's not a situation where they can talk on the phone.
A couple of them have had their phones and we were able to charge them and let
them FaceTime and you could just- it just breaks your heart to see the tears
because it's like I just wanna see my loved one, I just want to put eyes on and
just let me see my loved one, and I get it, I have a 22 year old that's away at college
so I couldn't imagine being separated from him not knowing where he is and or
how he is, even if they're not able to do anything about it just you know you you
go to the hospital to visit your loved one when they're ill so just them seeing
them- means all the world so those small things that we can do and and my thing
is I tell them especially if I see them going bad, one of the things- I'll get
in their ear and I'm like you know Mr. so and so you fight, you've got this, you
fight it. If you can't breathe, you take the next breath, if you're struggling you
still take the next breath your family is home they're waiting on you, they're
depending on you, you got this, you get up out of this, this is not the worst we've
seen so we do a lot of that directly in the ear talking and some of them all
they can do is just nod their heads and lets them know that you know I hear you
and I'm still in here even in the midst of being in an acute situation so it's
really intense. So you're the nurse, you're the counselor, you're the family
member, all of those things. And that's- you know what, that's no different from
what nurses do. We do this every day all day. We are the ones that see you when
you come into the world and so many times were the ones to be
holding your hand when you leave. Wow, Cassie, Cassie Marcelus you are one of
our heroes, thank you so much for joining me, I know want to get to bed you just
got off a 14-hour shift but I want to thank you for really letting us know
what we need to know for this segment that we do and get some rest and thank
you again for what you do. You're so welcome, thank you.