Nicole Pace of Holly Springs (MS) has been a registered nurse for 11 years, but says “Nothing can compare to what we’re going through now. I think about changing my profession every day.”
“Deaths from COVID-19 can be so random,” said Pace, who works at Alliance Healthcare Systems in Holly Springs, MS. “We’ve seen people come in with a small cough or runny nose, who are otherwise healthy, that don’t recover like they should. We can do everything we are supposed to do but still have a negative outcome at times.”
She has felt like one of the many living casualties of the pandemic – frontline medical workers who, at the height of the COVID-19 outbreak, are watching people die every day.
“The pandemic has also brought about deaths that are not directly related to COVID-19. When a patient has a critical need for care outside of what our facility can provide, our job is to stabilize and transfer them,” Pace explains. “But when other hospitals have no available beds because of being overwhelmed with COVID patients, it may result in a critical patient waiting for days to be transferred. It is so frustrating and stressful.”
Tina Villanueva, a registered nurse from Brandon (MS), shares the same anxiety as Pace. Early in the pandemic Villanueva was transferred from her normal job to a covid-19 testing center. “Each day that I worked at the testing site I was terrified of my potential exposure to the virus and that I could potentially be bringing it home to my husband”
“What healthcare workers are experiencing is akin to domestic combat,” Andrew J. Smith, Ph.D., director of the University of Utah Health Occupational Trauma Program at the Huntsman Mental Health Institute, said in a press release from his institution.
According to a study conducted by Smith’s group, more than half of the doctors, nurses and emergency responders providing COVID-19 care could be at risk for one or more mental health problems—including acute traumatic stress, depression, and anxiety.
Spiritual focus has helped Pace and Villanueva, both of whom are Jehovah’s Witnesses, battle through the mental and emotional toll of the pandemic. “Prayer has played a huge role in enduring this. It helps me cope,” she says. She continues to combat exhaustion by relying on Bible study and staying in close contact with her family of faith through Zoom meetings.
“When my husband and I give encouragement and practical help to friends in our congregation the blessing is returned on us. It reminds me that we’re not in this alone,” relates Pace.
Villanueva and her husband decided to combat the emotional strain of the pandemic by focusing on the emotional needs of others. The Villanueva’s decided to reach out to all of the hospitals, nursing homes, and assisted living facilities within the local area to share comfort. She explains, “We received permission to write to the health care workers, patients, and residents as these facilities. It was very therapeutic for me to write to other health care workers, sharing scriptures that had helped me to cope during that time.”
It’s been similar for Lindsay Gruzdis. The paramedic from Long Beach (MS) has struggled with the darkness of depression over the course of the pandemic.
“At times, my anxiety was the worst it has been in the 12 years I’ve worked on an ambulance. With the hospitals being overloaded, at times we would have to wait for hours with a patient before they could be admitted. By the time we would leave we’d have 10 new calls that came in, which led to me working double the hours. I lost so much weight, and I almost quit a couple of times,” admits Gruzdis.
Gruzdis senses that medical workers on the front lines are all in the same boat.Speaking of her co-workers she says, “We have bonded in our shared misery during this pandemic. Having meaningful bible discussions with them has strengthened my faith.”
One bible study aid that shows how to find relief from stress helped Gruzdis to climb out of the depression she had found herself in. “God has helped me find joy again,” she expresses with a smile.
American psychological and psychiatric associations, while not advocating or endorsing any specific religion, acknowledge a role for spirituality and religious faith in coping with distress and trauma.
Lawrence Onoda, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in Mission Hills, California, noted a number of ways spirituality can help, including giving people “a positive hope and meaning toward life, comfort by looking for answers and strength from a higher power, and a collective shared experience of support and community.”
Villanueva, mentioned earlier, points to her faith and help from her fellow Witnesses as the support she needed during the last year and a half. “Another thing that very much helped me cope were the rotating articles featured on the JW.org website. The practical advice- like limiting news intake was very helpful in helping me lessen the anxiety I felt every day,” she said.
For med-surg nurse Sade Cooper from Pascagoula, MS, having the help of her religious community has gotten her through the COVID-19 battle-grounds.
Cooper begins each day the same. Before her shift, she will pray with her husband and read an encouraging bible text. Then, during the week, she writes letters with positive Bible messages to her neighbors and continues to worship with her local congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses online.
“It’s overwhelming for me at times,” says Cooper, “but God is the solution for all of this,and that hope for a better future keeps me grounded.”
(For more information on gaining comfort through the scriptures, please see https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/peace-happiness/real-hope-future-bible-promises/)
Registered Nurse, Tina Villanueva of Brandon, MS looking at JW.org
Med-surge nurse, Sade Cooper reading the bible at her home in Pascagoula, MS
