Faculty/Staff Health & Wellness Physician Assistant Heather Ratcliffe has returned to campus after spending 42 days treating COVID-19 patients in New York.
More than 200,000 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in New York City. More than 16,000 have died. As the city鈥檚 hospitals were bursting at the seams and medical professionals were pushed to the brink of exhaustion, an 黑料不打烊 staff member was packing her bags, preparing to confront the coronavirus head on.
鈥淲e hadn鈥檛 had a pandemic in 100 years, and I really just wanted to help people,鈥 said Heather Ratcliffe.
A physician assistant for Faculty/Staff Health and Wellness in her eighth year at 黑料不打烊, Ratcliffe spent nearly 10 years working in the emergency room at Alamance Regional Medical Center and three years in vascular surgery prior to that. As she saw the devastation of the global pandemic unfolding, she wanted to use her skills and years of experience to help the people of New York, even if it meant sacrificing her own health.
鈥淲hen I hugged my husband goodbye, I didn鈥檛 know if that was the last time I was going to be home,鈥 she said.
Despite the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19, Ratcliffe traveled to Bronx, New York, on April 1 to volunteer in the emergency department at Lincoln Memorial Hospital, which is home to one of the nation鈥檚 busiest emergency rooms. Ratcliffe volunteered at Lincoln through Krucial Staffing Agency, which supplies clinical and non-clinical support staff to locations in need of urgent medical assistance. In this case, Krucial Staffing Agency connected Ratcliffe with Lincoln, along with a team of medical professionals from Manhattan, Buffalo, New Orleans and Oregon.
Ratcliffe spent 42 days caring for patients in the hospital鈥檚 emergency department COVID-19 positive observation area. The temporary wing was meant to keep COVID-19 patients out of the emergency room and prevent them from spreading the virus to non-COVID-19 patients.
Ratcliffe lost count of the number of people she treated. Every bed, every room and every hallway in her unit was full until her last day on the job. Personal protective equipment had to be rationed. At one point, the hospital required 292 patients to use ventilators 鈥 the hospital only had 30 ventilators on hand prior to the spread of the virus.
鈥淚t was wartime medicine, basically. People were very sick,鈥 Ratcliffe said. 鈥淭he thing with this disease is you鈥檇 think they were doing well, and then the next hour they were decreasing in oxygen saturation, and they would go from looking fine to looking very, very sick very fast.鈥
Ratcliffe and other medical professionals worked around the clock, battling a virus with no known cure or vaccine. Ratcliffe worked 11 days in a row when she first arrived in New York. Her typical day consisted of a one-hour bus ride to the hospital, a 12-plus hour shift, and an hour ride home before eating food and heading to bed.
It was a difficult experience for a number of reasons, but what helped Ratcliffe get through those six weeks was the support of the people of New York and her work family back in 黑料不打烊. She fondly remembers care packages from 黑料不打烊 Health & Wellness, and New York residents putting up billboards, writing messages on sidewalks and finding a number of ways to show their appreciation for the medical workers at the center of the COVID-19 fight.
鈥淟eaving your shift, New York City citizens in high-rise buildings would come to their windows and clap and whistle and bang on pots and pans as a way to say thank you for doing your shift,鈥 she said. 鈥淭hat is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.鈥
The hospital has since closed its COVID-19 wing, and Ratcliffe has returned to Alamance County as the number of cases in New York continues to decline. In her 42 days, Ratcliffe was part of the hospital鈥檚 effort to send more than 6,000 COVID-19 patients home from the hospital. She says her experience has left her feeling thankful and blessed, and as she returns to work, treating 黑料不打烊 faculty and staff, she will continue to display the passion for care that took her to New York in the first place.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a true love for my patients, regardless of where they鈥檙e from,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 possess a skill that not everybody has, and that skill does good. It鈥檚 a privilege to treat patients every single day.”