ambulance is coming and going patients
going back to the nursing home
new one's coming transfers out to fargo
it's nuts here
because we're in a rural community we
know a lot of our patients i personally
have had three patients
from the nursing home dying this is just
unlike every
anything i've ever seen
[Music]
so here we are to north dakota
you know we hope for the best every day
that starts okay thank you um
you just don't know what the day is
going to bring i'm amy beryanic
i have been a nurse for 30 years my name
is mary jo shap i'm a registered nurse
things have
really amped up around here we have had
to make makeshift rooms for patients in
the chapel
family room pretty much wherever we can
um cram them
we've had a really hard time getting
patients transferred out to our usual
receiving facilities because they're
also full patients that we wouldn't
ordinarily keep here in our
small rural community hospital we've had
to keep
we are now swamped with er patients
coming and there's nowhere to put them
and we are running on of staff
it's been quite a busy day i have spoke
to two families
extensively about end of life
we've had deaths here they are
members of the community that you know
we know it's heartbreaking because i
um a lot of these people are my friends
and i know personally
and then to see their family members
here
at the end of life and they and it's not
a normal grieving and dying process
we talked about it months and months ago
and how we'd handle it but you're never
really fully
emotionally or psychologically prepared
for the onslaught
but i think a large portion of the
population in our area doesn't really
quite get it yet
staffing in a rural facility has always
been a bit of a challenge
we are a skeleton crew to begin with and
now we are
slowly one by one catching covid i'm
post
covid about a week and a half and i
still am exhausted
when you are in something that you feel
like there will be no end
and it is like your worst nightmare ever
um i think we all go home and we have
nightmares and you
dream huffle dreams um the call lights
are going off and the people are falling
and
you can't get to them none of us ever
became nurses
and thought that we would do anything
like this well
that ends my shift i'm actually
feeling guilty leaving the hospital half
hour late but today is my son's birthday
and i always put my family on the back
burner and today
as much as i tried i still couldn't get
out of here on time
one of my patients that we transferred
back to the nursing home
uh end of life i believe has already
passed away
just ended my day uh leaving the
hospital
i'm back home now 9 p.m here and it's
been a long day
i feel exhausted um i feel
like crying a lot um you know you just
feel like you want it to
end i just wanted it to end and there is
no end in sight
you