When COVID 19 arrived in the Lehigh Valley in March 2020, nobody knew how long it would last, how bad it would get, or what it would ask of the people who worked in healthcare. What became clear almost immediately was that the nurses, doctors, and staff at Lehigh Valley Health Network would bear the heaviest burden. And they did, for months that stretched into years, with a level of dedication that the community will never fully be able to repay.
The Front Lines
LVHN produced a documentary called The Strength to Heal featuring four nurses who worked through the pandemic, and the stories they tell are harrowing. The early days were defined by uncertainty. Protocols changed daily. PPE was rationed. Patients arrived in waves, some recovering, many not. The ICUs filled. The nurses who staffed those units did so knowing they were exposing themselves to a virus that was killing people every day, and they showed up anyway.
Nichole Persing, Director of Patient Care Services in the ICU at Lehigh Valley Hospital Hecktown Oaks, is a competitive Ironman athlete. She has said that she applied her endurance athlete mindset to navigating the pandemic, drawing on the mental toughness required to push through mile 20 of a marathon to get through month after month of crisis level nursing. That comparison gives some sense of the physical and emotional endurance the pandemic demanded.
The Ones We Cannot Forget
Melissa Hosni, a registered nurse at Lehigh Valley Hospital Muhlenberg, was recognized with a Lehigh Valley Business Health Care Heroes Award for her work during the pandemic. She was known for going the extra mile, including helping COVID patients safely connect with their families when visitation was restricted. In a time when patients were dying alone, separated from the people they loved by infection control protocols, that human connection was one of the most important things a nurse could provide.
Maureen McDonough, Director of Patient Logistics, managed the impact of COVID patient surges and played a key role in opening LVHN's Capacity Command Center, which helped coordinate resources across the network during the most intense periods of the pandemic.
During the darkest months, the community responded in kind. Across the Lehigh Valley, residents decorated their homes with lights, chalk art, and yard signs honoring healthcare workers as part of LVHN's Light It Blue initiative. It was a small gesture, but for exhausted nurses driving home at the end of a 12 hour shift, those blue lights in the windows meant everything.
The pandemic will eventually fade from daily conversation, but the service of LVHN's nurses during that period should not. They held the Valley together when it was breaking, and they did it with courage, compassion, and a commitment to their patients that went far beyond what any job description could ever require.
