- [Mia] All right, my darling. You okay?
- [Birdean] Mm-hmm.
- [Mia] All right, okay. All right.
Well, we are here if you need anything, okay?
- [Birdean] Yeah, you tell everybody
just to take their vaccine.
- [Mia] Yes, ma'am. We're trying.
- This is something
we have no control over.
- [Mia] Yes, ma'am.
- And the Lord has given us all of the education
to work with it.
We got to work together and pray together.
- [Mia] Yes, Ma'am.
From your lips to God's ears. (chuckles)
- Yes, Lord. Thank y'all.
- [Mia] Well, we're trying to get COVID under control.
I mean, this is our fourth surge, as they're saying,
we got a lot of patients here,
probably more patients than we could take care of, honestly.
There's a lot of people here, a lot.
We're tired, stressed.
We're trying to do the best
that we can with the resources that we have.
But there's just not enough of us.
He just came this morning?
- [Nurse] Yeah.
He came from Lafayette,
so I don't know why they transferred him from Lafayette.
- [Mia] 'Cause they probably don't
have any beds over there.
That's what it is.
'Cause that's what they've been doing.
Mm-hmm. Don't have any beds.
- [Arthur] This isn't what we signed up for,
but this is our role now,
and we have to do as best we can for the patients.
Our workload has probably tripled or more.
- [Joan] If more.
- [Arthur] I mean, you may have had two or three pumps.
Now you're looking at maybe 16 or two whole rows like this,
every organ being supported in the room.
- [Joan] Every organ.
- [Arthur] Every organ's being supported.
- [Joan] But the scary thing
about this variant is that people decompensate so quickly.
They'll be well and then they'll be a little sick.
And then they're needing emergent intubation.
We're tired, I mean I'm...
- [Arthur] We want to put this behind us.
- [Joan] I'm very emotional on my days off.
It's hard to process all of this.
And our spouses, his wife,
they're having to deal with that, as well.
- [Arthur] Right.
- [Joan] Supporting us,
supporting everyone else.
- [Heather] So there was actually
two code blues this morning.
One ended up being okay, one ended up coming over here.
So we were able to get him situated.
He's doing well.
So that's a win in our book.
- [Mia] Well, the typical shift is 12 hours,
but we've been stretched so much,
a lot of us do 13, 14 hours.
I've been working like five days a week,
just trying to fill in the gaps,
just trying to fill in the needs.
And I'm tired.
All of us are tired.
How's it been for you with this COVID?
- Not too bad, but I mean,
it's something you don't want. (laughs)
- [Mia] Yeah. Yeah. For sure, for sure.
If you don't have the shot, you need to get the shot.
- [Mia] That's a yeah. Yeah.
- I tried to play safe and stay away from everything
and everybody, all the big crowds and stuff,
but it only takes one to get you.
It don't take the crowd.
- [Mia] Mm-hmm, Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's right.
- [Allen] Believe me. It don't take a crowd.
- [Mia] That's right.
- [Allen] It just takes one to carry it.
- [Mia] I'm no different than anybody else in the community.
I have family members who still haven't been vaccinated.
About 90% of the patients
that's on this floor are unvaccinated.
The patients that have become infected with the vaccine,
they don't stay here as long.
The symptoms are very mild compared to the unvaccinated.
It's frustrating, you know?
It's frustrating.
I'm preaching, I'm pleading,
but come up here and see one of your loved ones.
That'll change your mind.
Help us help the community.
Just help us.
Go get the vaccine and help us.
There's only so many of us.
I'mma keep saying that.
- [Arthur] I may sound cliche, but I love what I do.
I love my coworkers, you know,
and we're a family here and they were struggling.
And so, we had to just do what we could
to get through this.
And I just pray that one day that this is behind us
and no more people are impacted by this.
I want this to be done.
I know we all...