Staff at McLeod Health Clarendon looks back on year of pandemic

Just over a year ago, hospitals were fortresses.

Trying to ward off an invisible enemy causing tangible chaos, machines buzzed on specially marked floors as movements made through plastic were many people's last. Now, there is no COVID-19 unit at McLeod Health Clarendon, and the omnipresent noise is hospital commercials playing on TVs in 15-minute intervals interspersed with occasional whoops and even laughs as another person receives her vaccine.

With a lower threshold of new COVID-19 cases and more and more people getting vaccinated against the coronavirus, McLeod Health Clarendon, which was once responding to hospitalizations and deaths in the state's hottest spot, has been able to take a breath. Finally.

Last year was their finest hour, said Rachel Gainey, hospital administrator. The Manning hospital still sees COVID-19 patients coming in, but after a long year, she and other hospital leaders have recognized what they've learned and what they've added to their health care response arsenal.

"This will never be our routine, but we'll be able to handle it even better next time," said Dr. Catherine Rabon, a hospitalist and McLeod Health Clarendon CEO.

She said it is rewarding to see how many treatment options are available now. Rather than anxiety and despair taking over all other emotions around last March and April, there is now hope.

"Seeing small hospitals like us being able to provide advanced medicines and equipment, a depth of resources, especially early on when we were the hot spot," she said, noting their flexibility in being a rural hospital that is part of a larger system that can offer resource and even staff sharing. "There's a misconception that you don't get as good care at a small, rural hospital or it's only for people without transportation to a bigger hospital. What we do, we do it well. We had someone from Columbia come here to get an infusion."

During the height of the pandemic throughout 2020, McLeod Health Clarendon renovated its McLeod Medical Plaza Clarendon to expand medical office space for primary and specialty care practices; launched a rural residency program; installed a new CT scanner; opened McLeod Primary Care Turbeville and McLeod Surgery Clarendon, a Sumter location; installed a new 3D mammogram machine with a breast biopsy attachment; made advancements in telehealth; and won multiple health grade awards, including earning an "A" on the Leapfrog Survey.

Those silver linings are not without the lows of what last year brought. Rabon described it as a roller coaster of cheers and tears.

The average length of stay for a COVID-19 patient is two to three times longer than a pneumonia patient, Rabon said, so they build "deeper and different" relationships with the patients and the families.

They celebrated when COVID-19 nurses extubated a patient after months on a ventilator but held hands of family members who couldn't visit their loved ones.

"Someone could be fine on 2 liters of oxygen in the morning and on a ventilator by the evening. It's hard for families to understand because we didn't understand a lot, and they couldn't be there. People want to blame someone," Rabon said.

She said people are still getting very sick, but the numbers are "way down."

Gainey said the staff is more agile now. They're prepared for an increase, but they're hoping that won't happen.

"There are brighter days ahead," she said. "We can quickly mobilize telehealth services, which COVID-19 forced us to do."

They both said communities need to "blend the continued safety precautions with the needs for humans to socialize." They said they hope people don't let their guard down too soon, as has been seen in places like India.

As hesitancy to the vaccines continues to prevent the rates needed for herd immunity, where enough people are vaccinated that a virus cannot spread widely, they said they have watched all year the super-spreader events in the area, such as funerals or weddings, and watched intake numbers increase two weeks later.

"We're all tired," Rabon said. "We just can't let our guard down too soon."