How local palliative care nurses are adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, palliative care nurses at CHI. St Joseph Health have had to alter their strategies to provide the needed care for patients and their families.

Jackie Burnette, the nurse practitioner with palliative care at CHI St. Joseph Health says with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, everything came to a sudden halt.

“We realized that we relied a lot on body language. We relied on family dynamics and input. We relied on that support system and all of a sudden how we navigated through a normal day with our patients abruptly stopped, and it changed dramatically. It changed in the stress that presented from the natural consequence early on of all the unknowns,” said Burnette.

Burnette says everyone in palliative care had to quickly reevaluate the way they operated. She set up Zoom meetings so nurses, patients, families, and physicians could still communicate, despite the circumstances. It’s a change Burnette says relieved a lot of stress for everyone.

“The relief of just seeing their loved one who was just here, but also for the families to see the faces of different providers and different caregivers, and then it let us navigate some of those decisions a little quicker,” said Burnette.

Throughout this pandemic, these caregivers have also had to take on more challenges than usual. While palliative care isn’t designed for end of life, because of the severity of the coronavirus, they have had to help some families through the difficult process.

“One of the biggest challenges was knowing the value at end of life and the dignity that can come with that. Early on, there was a family in particular, and they weren’t able to come in because of their own family members being compromised, and realizing that you had to bridge that gap and that was what our team did,” said Burnette.

It was an experience she says gave them a new outlook.

“I thought that would be a heaviness to carry and what I saw was that it was absolutely beautiful. It was a different perspective of life where we see life sometimes with birth, and we celebrate. I saw that we were able then to help families celebrate the passing of their loved one.” said Burnette. “As days have unfolded, each day were given things that we don’t expect, and if we sit still then we see the gift that sifts out.”