Coronavirus Update: Nurses Step In For Family, Friends To Provide Much Needed Comfort For COVID-19 Patients
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Many hospitalized coronavirus patients are going through this battle without friends or family at their bedside to provide comfort, so health care workers are going the extra mile to make sure their patients know they're not alone.
Twenty-seven-year-old Jordie Blum is a registered nurse at NYU Langone Hospital.
"We are here for them no matter what they need -- medical needs, physical, emotional," Blum said.
But to many patients there, and their families, she is an angel.
"Some of these patients are so sweet, it's hard not to want to do everything possible for them," Blum told CBS2's Scott Rapoport.
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Amidst a pandemic of sick COVID-19 patients, isolated from friends and family who are unable to visit them, Blum is now stepping in for them to provide that loving human contact the disease has stolen.
"Not being able to have family or friends at the bedside while you're going through something so scary and hearing on the news how serious this all is is very difficult for everyone," Blum said.
She recently posted on social media, telling families who cannot visit their loved ones in the hospital, "I would love to stop by to visit them before my shift begins or after my shift ends."
She offers a hand to hold, a chance to talk and often more.
And it has meant the world.
"What makes them happy. Sometimes they wanna listen to music. Sometimes they want to pray. Even just bringing them a cup of hot tea is comfort for them," Blum said.
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She says she and her fellow nurses came up with the idea for this together, that is actually something they do every day in their job, and that sometimes the conversations can get difficult, especially with patients afraid of dying.
"I can't tell them exactly what's going to happen to them. I wish I could always say, 'You're going to be completely fine.' I just reassure them that they are in the best hands possible, that we are taking good care of them, and we are completely focused on them and we just want them to get better," Blum said.
But for the patients and the families, she says their gratitude is immeasurable.
"I've had patients just be very, very thankful, very appreciative and just saying over and over, like, 'You're an angel. Thank you so much,'" Blum said.
To Jordie Blum and all the other angel nurses she works with, who in these frightening and deadly times are responding with compassion, kindness and grace.