Rita Donahue, RN

Rita was taking care of a very critical patient. The patient’s cousin and decision-maker came to the bedside multiple times throughout his stay, and after seeing him decompensate overnight, she made the difficult decision to withdraw care the following morning. Shortly after this, the patient’s family member started to feel very ill. Rita immediately jumped to her aid. The patient was on precautions for COVID-19, so Rita assisted her safely out of the room and helped her in getting her PPE off. She got the attention of other nurses to get her a wheelchair, and they were quickly able to get her down to the ED.

In the meantime, Rita let the providers of the patient know what had happened and was instructed to start taking the steps to transition the patient to comfort care, despite the cousin not being able to be present. All the orders had been placed, so she started the patient on a PCA and turned off the patient’s pressors but left him intubated in case the cousin was able to return shortly. All the while, Rita continued to check on the patient’s cousin and attempted to call her multiple times.

It became more apparent to Rita that the cousin may not be able to make it back up to see the patient any time soon, so she sat with him, held his hand, and comforted him. The patient ended up passing with Rita by his side shortly after. Rita continued to attempt to get an update on the patient’s cousin. The patient’s providers were unfortunately unable to make it down to the ED to speak with the cousin. Rita asked me if it would be appropriate for her to go down and talk with her. I told her if she felt comfortable, I would go with her.

We got down to the ED waiting room and found her sitting with her sister. Rita immediately went up and comforted her and introduced herself to the cousin’s sister. We found a private place to go sit with them. Rita started by making sure that she was okay and gave her the opportunity to talk with us about what had happened if she wanted.