EAU CLAIRE (WQOW) - As hospitals both across the nation and here in the Chippewa Valley reach capacity, and the number of COVID-19 cases in our community continue to rise, this pandemic is truly taking its toll on those working on the front lines every single day.
Registered Nurse Manager at HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital, Zac Zenner, has been working in healthcare for over a decade, but he's never been through anything like this.
At 6:30 in the morning, Zenner starts his day. When he arrives at Sacred Heart Hospital, he asks RN's how the overnight shift went and checks to see if there is anything he needs to tend to right away. From there, he goes on to spend much of his day helping the exhausted nurses and the growing number of patients in any way he can.
"Surprises are very hard to come by at this point," he said. "Because every day you get things that happen. There are experiences and situations that I never thought I'd ever deal with in my life, inside or outside healthcare, and now it's kind of becoming the norm. So every day has its own challenges and some days you get to see people getting better and going home and being with their loved ones and other days just with the progression of their illness, that just doesn't happen."
Zenner's job includes organizing staff, which has been a struggle as the pandemic wears on because the nurses contract COVID-19 and need to quarantine. But apart from scheduling and checklists, his job holds the weight of authority, in that Zenner is the one who communicates with COVID-19 patients' families as to why they cannot be by their loved one's side.
"Sometimes it's really difficult because this is new for everybody," he said. "I have never been through a pandemic and for the vast majority of people alive, we have never been through something like this."
After a shift that lasts between 10 and 12 hours, Zenner goes home at last. He said it's hard disconnecting from work after he clocks out but knows that at a certain point, he has to take care of himself, get a breath of fresh air without a mask on, and try and reflect on what is happening, all while maintaining the sense of hope that's crucial during a crisis.
"We're all in this together and as a community, we're only going to get through all of this together," Zenner said.
Zenner said the last nine months have been a rollercoaster, but that the support healthcare workers have received from the community is incredible.
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November 30, 2020 at 09:55AM
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A day in the life of a nurse treating COVID-19 patients - WQOW TV News 18
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