I am an attending physician at Loyalhanna Care Center, Latrobe, which was recently in the news due to covid-19. Despite the strong efforts of the administration, the virus was likely introduced into the facility by a patient transferred from a hospital outside our locale. Over the past month it has quickly spread to numerous patients on the north wing. Many have recovered, some are still ill, and several have died. Fifteen staff members also have contracted the virus. So far, mitigation has spared the south wing.
I am privileged to work with a superb nursing and ancillary staff led by a strong administrator and director of nursing. Coronavirus has been called “the invisible enemy.” Indeed, you can’t see it, hear it, taste it or smell it, but you can feel it every time you enter the unit. Every day brave nurses, aides, therapists and housekeepers enter the unit to provide excellent care and compassion to their ill residents, despite the risk to their own health and lives and those of their families.
I ask you whenever you see nurses and other health care workers, especially ones working the front lines, to thank them and pray for them.
Dr. George M. Gavin
Unity