Family members mourn being separated from her husband, father and dying of COVID in the ICU

WILMINGTON, NC (WECT) – It’s a heartbreaking dilemma that people across the country face again. Families separated from each other after a loved one is hospitalized with COVID-19. WECT spoke to a family who suffered this trauma, worried that the father might die alone.

“No family should have to endure what we’ve been through,” Joy Harman said through tears during a Zoom interview from her home in Pender County.

Her family was not vaccinated, and when family members caught COVID in early August, the symptoms affected Joy’s father, Gary Avery, the hardest. He had a history of kidney disease, which made him more susceptible.

“He’s been to the hospital, I don’t know how many times, and every time he’s been there I’ve been able to be by his side and feed him, and he’d sleep in a chair next to him and put his hand on it.” of 43-year-old Gary, Marylillie told WECT.

But this time, hospital staff told Marylillie she couldn’t visit him. They limit visitors to limit the spread of infection. To make matters worse, Marylillie and Joy had also hired COVID.

“Where’s the heart?” Joy said, questioning the hospital’s decision to prevent her from visiting her father. “I want our community to be safe too. We don’t wish it on anyone. But at the same time, is it really right to move your family away? Is it really fair to leave your family alone in a hospital bed? Scared. Low. You know? We are in America. “

“We asked them to let me go and sit there. I told them I wouldn’t leave the room. I will stay right there in your room. I don’t have to leave. I have no reason to leave my husband’s bed, “said Marylillie.

Doctors and nurses working on the front line of this pandemic say it is a tough but necessary call.

“If you are COVID positive or have a COVID infection, you are prohibited from visiting. So we’ve had some visits, some family members who are really COVID positive asking to visit them and we say ‘No’. This protects our staff, our patients and the families available, ”explained Dr West Paul, an internal medicine doctor and clinical director at New Hanover Regional Medical Center on hospital policy.

Despite the risk, the hospital allows visitors, on a case-by-case basis, for COVID patients to the End-of-Life Intensive Care Unit.

Less than 12 hours after our initial interview with Joy and Marylillie, Gary died. The hospital allowed them to get dressed and visit him for 20 minutes at his last minute, but then they had to leave and Gary died alone.

“I don’t want any other woman to have to go through what I went through with my husband,” Marylillie told WECT a few days after her death. “Her husband should let her be right and take care of him. There’s no way the hospital staff can take care of him every second. And he could have it.”

As a trained nurse, Marylillie was especially upset that she was denied the opportunity to help her husband in his final days.

“We received the phone call that had collapsed in my father’s lungs. And that was decaying rapidly. And that they would go ahead and give him life support, “Joy recalled of the call she received from the hospital hours before her father died. At that point, she was no longer able to interact with them, but the Averys were allowed. that they would come to see Gary for a painful 20 minute visit.

“We had to put on an N95 mask, put on a shield for our heads, put on a suit over our arms and gloves. And we went in and sat down with Dad, “Joy said. When they ran out of time, they had to leave and, 15 minutes later, they learned that her beautiful father and husband had passed away alone.

“The contact when we were allowed to see my father was no different than what the contact would have been if we were allowed to see him when he was well,” Joy said of her frustration at not being able to visit her before.

The human impact of all this is also intestinal destruction for caregivers.

“Our providers, our doctors and our nurses, are really having a hard time with that. I mean they are the ones who witness death around us, but they are also responsible for caring for our staff and our patients. So they have this dual role and it’s incredibly hard to keep up. Trying to make sure they do the right thing, both in terms of the patient and our staff, and making sure everyone is safe – it is – is very difficult, ”Dr. Paul added.

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