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Ruth Caballero paused outside a door to an unfamiliar apartment, preparing to meet her new patient.
He covered the knob with a plastic bag, put on a surgical cap, then an N95 mask, and on top of that another less protective surgical mask. Hat, plastic mask and shoe covers. Antibacterial hand gel after each step of the process. Finally, the nurse put on two sets of gloves and knocked on the door with her elbow, ready to attend to her first patient with coronavirus.
After spending about three weeks in a hospital, the man was back in his New York apartment but still so weak that he had to be persuaded to sit on the bed.
“You managed to get out of the hospital, so you’re a miracle,” Caballero told him. “Now we must keep you out of the hospital.”
Home health care is becoming the new front of the national fight against COVID-19 once some patients are returning from hospitals and others try to avoid being hospitalized.
Nurses and assistants – who typically help about 12 million Americans in activities ranging from bathing to IV medication – are now taking on the difficult and potentially risky task of caring for patients with coronavirus in their homes.
While Americans are being exhorted to confinement, most healthcare staff and their patients still have to meet in person, most often in the privacy of an office setting. Many agencies have increased telephone and video consultations, but they cannot always be paid for such services, and even the best smartphones are not capable of physically healing a wound or taking someone to the toilet.
Like their colleagues in hospitals and homes for the elderly, home health aides have faced a shortage of protective equipment, but with a lower public profile.
In most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms that disappear in two to three weeks. In some people, especially older adults and those with underlying health conditions, it can lead to more serious illnesses, such as pneumonia, and even death.
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