LOHS grad works as a nurse at Royal Oak Beaumont hospital

By Megan Kelley

Review Writer

As the state of Michigan prepares to reopen, it’s clear that most of us are itching to get out, get a haircut and enjoy the summer with the friends and family we’ve been unable to see for months now. However, even without an executive order asking us to stay home, the threat of COVID-19 is still very much alive.

As a recent graduate of Michigan State University with a degree in Human Biology, 22-year-old Lake Orion alumni Nikki Liogas has been in the thick of it all working as a Nursing Assistant in an observation unit at Royal Oak Beaumont.

She spoke with The Orion Review to give some first-hand insight on what it’s like in the hospitals battling COVID-19.

Liogas graduated from Michigan State in 2019 and began working at Royal Oak Beaumont in mid-February. Michigan saw its first case of Coronavirus on March 10, giving Liogas just a few weeks of normalcy before cases started rolling in and she was expected to care for COVID-19 patients.

“We’re an observation unit so (before COVID-19) people were only there for like two days tops. They were usually just there for like chest pain or intestinal pain and they get tested and they go home. We (would) just watch them through the night. But with COVID-19, I normally have no more than seven patients, but now I have eight to 10,” Liogas said.

Before COVID-19, the patients Liogas would see were generally healthy enough to assist themselves. Meaning, they could get up and move around. With COVID-19, a lot of the patient care she delivers is in-bed care, Liogas explained.

“They’re too weak to really walk so it’s a lot of care for them in bed.”

Not only is the patient load larger and patients weaker than usual, but the patients are also older. And with no vaccine in sight and the fact that we’re still unsure how exactly the virus is spread, it’s a tedious task just giving all of the patients the care they need.

“They’re way, way sicker than what we’re used to…with the COVID-19 thing though, it’s not that it’s overwhelming to take care of, it’s that in and out of every room, I have to put a gown on, I have to wear like three masks on my face and it’s just hot in there…you just have to take breaks and it takes forever,” Liogas said. “I try to think of everything a person could possibly need before I go in there and I do it all at once, so I don’t have to keep going in and out. I go there and I’m in one room for like 30-40 minutes and then I still have seven other people to take care of.”

Liogas’s unit holds 54 beds and at the time of this interview, was transitioning back to being open bed with 40 beds functioning as COVID-19 beds. At their max, their beds were 100 percent full of COVID-19 patients.

While Liogas has seen her fair share of patients improve and be released, she has also had to deal with the more tragic side of COVID-19.

“We had one terrible night where like, all after midnight, five people passed away in just one night. I don’t think our unit saw anything worse than that because for the most part if they were really that sick, they were getting sent to like an ICU or somewhere else in the hospital,” Liogas said.

Another harsh reality of COVID-19 is the isolation factor. Not only have nurses and other hospital employees taken it upon themselves to move out of their family homes in order to keep their families safe, but hospital patients aren’t allowed visitors either. Even if they do get sicker, even if they’re dying — aside from the hospital staff and nurses, they’re alone.

“Through all of this, I only had one patient who was specifically mine pass away, and I had to do postmortem care,” Liogas said. “It was the worst day. And I think that I’m more okay with it because it is natural, working in health care you will just see that. It just like, hits you in the feels because you’re like, ‘okay this old lady hasn’t seen her family in like two weeks,’ and then we were allowing one family member to come see her before we took her out of the hospital and they said ‘no’ because they were so scared. So, we bagged up the stuff she came in with for them so come pick up. That’s all we can do…I don’t want to say I’m okay with doing that but it’s just a weird reality of life and death. Doing it, like actually caring for her after she had passed…you know, you just have to do it. I just had to have a good hard cry on my way home from work that night…I feel good because I was in there and I was squeezing her hand, so I’m still making a difference.”

Being exposed to COVID-19 nearly every day creates another tedious task for hospital staff; making sure they don’t bring it with them when they leave.

“When you work in the ORs (operating rooms) you change into hospital scrubs because you don’t want to contaminate an OR. So, everyone who works in a COVID-19 unit now gets to change into those scrubs,” Liogas explained. “When my shift ends, if I have my phone on me, I’ll usually put it in a plastic bag, or I’ll wipe it down with disinfectant wipes before I leave. I’ll wipe down the bottom of my shoes with disinfectant. I tie a bandana around my hair because they don’t know if it gets in your hair or not, and I come home and wash my hair anyway…I also come home and I shower right away and I wash those clothes that I just transported myself in.”

Liogas also pointed out how easily the coronavirus can be killed.

“It can be killed pretty easily with just like soap and disinfectant. It’s just that you don’t know when someone is contagious,” Liogas said. “Let’s say someone with COVID-19 coughed on you. It takes typically 7-10 days for you to be like ‘oh I have a fever now,’ but that whole week, you are contagious. That’s why it spreads so fast. It got way more out of control because no one knew…for me it’s like, yeah I kind of would like peace-of-mind to be tested, but also it’s like, I’m going to keep going back to work where a ton of people have it so just because I don’t have it now doesn’t mean I won’t have it later.”

Moving forward, even with Governor Whitmer extending the “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order to June 12, there are still people who are putting themselves and the economy over public health.

“People need to really put into perspective how they’re being selfish by demanding that we open. They’re twisting it that they don’t have rights anymore but they’re just being selfish,” Liogas said. “The way I look at it, in kind of a worst-case scenario, I’m going to be dealing with COVID-19 for like the next two years…my message for people is to try and be more selfless and try and be at peace.”

Liogas’ unit was switched back to it’s original purpose as an observation unit and she was no longer caring for COVID-19 patients in the beginning of May. However, she is still anticipating a spike in new cases after Michigan reopens in the next few months.