inside the story with 60 minutes producer guy campanile
our story this week is about the staff shortage at hospitals around the country
during the pandemic what i did was spent about three and a half days with doctors
nurses and technicians at the university of louisville hospital in louisville kentucky
one of the techniques that we've used is embedding with healthcare providers during a pandemic and
what embedding means is spending time with them not with a giant 60 minutes crew and
lots of people but just yourself with a small camera and follow them around for a few days
it was a technique that 60 minutes used often during the iraq and afghanistan conflicts
to follow combat units well we're doing the same thing with hospital workers
the advantage of it is that you get really close to what's happening without interfering with
patient care or patient privacy as i made my way around the hospital folks were saying you should
really go talk to dr edward miller miller is the division director of maternal fetal medicine
and high risk obstetrics at the university of louisville health and dr miller began to describe
how covid was affecting the maternity ward while pregnancy doesn't make you more likely to get
coveted if you are pregnant and get coveted you are more likely to have severe covid
so not only are we seeing pregnant moms that come in with coveted infections but we're seeing
a higher incidence of them having really really significant reactions to covid whether it be the
need to be intubated have supplemental oxygen and in the hardest case situations be delivered early
what dr miller shared was the extraordinary choices some of his patients face when they're
infected with covid late in their pregnancies there is nothing like telling a mom that
we are going to put you to sleep we are going to deliver your 26 week baby and i don't know
when you're going to wake up if you're going to wake up or if you're gonna see your baby again
there's nothing like telling a dad that as well and family members that as well
and then on the flip side you have this voice in your head that says this was preventable
and this moment didn't have to happen like this one of the things that dr miller described to
me which i found interesting was what he described as a trust gap that he felt was developing between
himself and some of his patients and something he worried about that would outlast a pandemic
often he's consulting with expected moms about really important things about their health
and they'll take his advice whether it's prenatal vitamins or things they should be doing very late
in their pregnancies but there are some patients who are not taking his advice at all on things
like vaccines and he thinks that's a huge issue i think that healthcare used to be the situation
where you went to your doctor because they were the trusted person in your community in your area
in your location and you put this blind trust in them which is one of the most humbling
experiences of being a physician that trust is held however kovit is testing it i'm always
amazed at how strong women are during pregnancy and how selfless they are during pregnancy and
the answer when you give a family a very difficult situation is almost always
do what it takes to save the life of my child but it's just interesting when that logic doesn't hold
with this vaccine being a high risk obstetrician on a good day is a pretty stressful job and for dr
miller he's one of two in the whole hospital so he is working all the time throw covet on top of that
and now it's taken to a whole other level when coed first came out we were sharing ppe
we had no vaccine on the horizon and now we have all these interventions you can get tested
for covet at home you can go on youtube and see videos of what to do if you get covetor
or vaccine information and we've hit a point now where the patients the majority of patients who
are sickest that are coming in know about this information and they know about these
resources that are available to them so this is our make or break moment they are stretching us
they are challenging us and we do not know how to reach them
the maternity ward and neonatal intensive care unit at university of louisville hospital isn't
much different than you'd find in most major hospitals around the country you know the nurses
and doctors who work there are really special people they're seeing some of the happiest
events in people's lives and then some of the worst tragedies many of them have gotten ill
recovered gone back to work had family gotten ill recovered gone back to work had family die
from the disease and it just keeps going and going and going while some of their colleagues have left
because of the relentless nature of the pandemic the word we kept hearing over and over again was
exhaustion exhaustion these people are really tired the evolution of you know going from
seeing signs that say healthcare heroes and coming on the front lines of covid and feeling like you
were making a difference and like you're scared but this is your calling to now where you're lying
you're trying to force something upon me um you're one of them it's it's uh it's it's frustrating