Providing Care During COVID: A Minnesota Nurse's Story
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Nurses are providing care to some of the state's sickest patients.
Elle Johnson has been a nurse for 11 years, and nine of those years have been at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park. She says COVID-19 case numbers are high, and the demand for care is growing, with more patients in need of ventilators.
"In typical times we can dust ourselves off, de-brief and rally around each other," Johnson said. "We've never had so many sick patients."
Johnson says colleagues lean on each other for support.
"They're the ones that get me through it. We get each other through it," she said.
The nurses are there for every patient.
"I wish I could reach out to every single person who lost a family member to coronavirus and say to them they weren't alone," Johnson said. "Every single person who lost somebody, we were there. The nurses were there as they took their final breaths."
Johnson has been treating COVID patients since March.