Ohio nurses on the Covid-19 front-lines share their experiences

COLUMBUS, Ohio -
"We here, at the hospital, are no longer the frontlines. We're the last line of defense. The frontlines now is the community," said ICU Nurse Manager at Riverside Hospital in Columbus, Dara Pence.
Pence was just one of several nurses to join Governor DeWine during a Monday public briefing.
"It's been really rough over the past three weeks, especially," said Covid Unit Nurse Manager at Akron General Hospital, Stacey Morris.
Each one sharing what they are seeing, at this point in the pandemic.
"We're seeing healthy, healthy individuals come in and they just decline so quickly," said Covid Unit Nurse at Upper Valley Medical Center in Troy, Jamie Giere.
Morris said in some cases, patients deteriorate faster than expected.
"That's been a really sharp learning curve for us, is seeing that they'll just be on a couple litters of oxygen when they're first admitted and then requiring a lot more oxygen very quickly and then an ICU bed just within hours," said Morris.
Nurses say for these patients, it's a lonely experience unable to see family face-to-face unless they're nearing the end of life.
"A lot of times too, families don't want to come in - they're too afraid to come into the hospital. too afraid to be exposed to covid," said Pence.
"I know that that's a really heavy piece on the caregivers here too, holding the iPad, listening to those conversations, typically those are private conversations that happen amongst loved ones and we've become apart of," said Morris
Incredibly difficult moments - ones these nurses are asking the public to hear.
"This is no joke, this is very serious, and we just want the public to realize this isn't a hoax, this is real, this is true," said Giere.