Page 34 - Healthcare News Sept.-Oct. 2020

HEALTHCARE HEROES OF WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
of calm amid a crisis unlike anything Mercy had seen before.
Her work during the early stages
of the pandemic took her to every corner of the hospital, and also far outside its walls. Indeed, she taught PPE donning and doffing, hand hygiene, and infection-control practices to staff at the Hampden County Correctional Center in Ludlow.
Summing it all up, she said this has been a learning experience — one that is very much ongoing, and one that has helped her personally and
professionally in innumerable ways. “I’m a better nurse, and I’ve grown
my knowledge base,” she explained. “And I now have a closer working relationship with many of the people here. Initially, I was joking that, when COVID is done, I’m going to change my cell-phone number and disable Halo [a messaging system used in healthcare] on my phone, because of all those calls I was getting. But through all those conversations and close meetings, we’ve become closer and have stronger relationships.”
Turning back the clock several years, Eboso said she took a somewhat winding route to her role as Infection Control and Prevention coordinator.
She came to this country from Kenya with the intention of studying business, but quickly segued into healthcare
at Springfield Technical Community College and soon landed a summer internship at Mercy. When it was over, she was asked if she wanted to stay on as a nurse’s aide, and replied with a strong ‘absolutely.’ In many ways, she’s never left.
She went from nurse’s aide to nurse to clinical nurse supervisor to administrative nursing supervisor on weekend nights, a position that was eventually eliminated in 2015, prompting her to leave the Mercy system for close to a year.
She was offered a chance to return, and remembers the vice president
of Nursing offering her her pick of positions.
Eboso chose Infection Control, something she had never done before, but intrigued her. She recalls her husband noting she was a quick study and saying, “If someone offers you an amazing opportunity and you’re not sure you can do it, say ‘yes’ —then learn how to do it later.” He also sent her an inspirational quote from Richard Branson to the same effect.
But no words, from her husband or Branson, could likely have prepared her for what her role became starting early this year, and especially after she started receiving those texts in the supermarket.
“We had to call the Department of Public Health and get approval for testing because hospitals couldn’t do the testing themselves. So
it was now calling the epidemiologist, waiting for a call back, talking to the physicians and nurse, looking at the patient, and waiting fo”r DPH to call you back.
They came from the Emergency Department director, the ED charge nurse, and the nurse tending to the patient directly. She put the shopping aside, was at the hospital in 10 minutes, and began addressing a situation that would become a microcosm of all that would come over the ensuing weeks and months.
“We had to call the Department
of Public Health and get approval for testing because hospitals couldn’t
do the testing themselves,” she explained. “So it was now calling the epidemiologist, waiting for a call back, talking to the physicians and nurse, looking at the patient, and waiting for DPH to call you back.”
“Information was changing almost every day,” she went on, while discussing what those first few weeks and months were like. “So as you’re building systems into your computer,
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A22 OCTOBER 2020
2020 HEALTHCARE HEROES