For nearly a year now, St. Luke’s and other health systems across the country have battled the COVID-19 pandemic.
Countless hours have been spent treating a new, highly contagious virus, putting extreme stress on frontline health care workers.
Below are four videos of St. Luke’s employees discussing their experiences with COVID-19. Their message? COVID-19 needs to continue to be taken seriously.
See more videos on our YouTube page: St. Luke's Health System - YouTube
ICU nurse Agnes Boisvert gets real about COVID-19. Boisvert, who works in St. Luke’s Boise hospital, said, “This is what we were fearing … (patients) have this look in their eye, this absolute fear.”
St. Luke's respiratory therapist Nancy Roberts talks about misinformation, death and dealing with how her job has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“You see one person die from this, and you’re forever touched by it,” Roberts said. “For somebody to not believe this is happening, it blows my mind.”
“I wear my mask to take care of you. You should wear your mask to take care of me,” St. Luke's Rachel Thain, a respiratory therapist, said. “Now when I see people not wearing their masks and not wanting to wear their masks, it’s like a sign of disrespect to me at this point.”
Thain notes that two of her sickest patients have been in their 20s.
Early in the pandemic, support was strong, but public support has waned.
“It’s real, and it’s filling up our hospitals,” Dr. Adam Robison said.
Dave Southorn works in the Communications and Marketing department at St. Luke's.