When Your Loved One is in the Hospital alone – the Covid19 chronicles

This story in my local newspaper touched my heart. Because of Covid-19, a local mother and grandmother, died alone last week in the hospital from Covid-19.

Her family couldn’t hold her hand or kiss her forehead or tell her, at least in private, any of the things anyone might whisper to someone they love during their final moments together. An ICU nurse helped the family connect by holding an iPad in front of Fejes, who had been taken off the ventilator a short while before. Her eyes were closed and she was not responsive. “I told her it’s OK, we’re here, if you need to go,” said Josephine Pintaudi, Fejes’ sister.

Akron Beacon Journal

This has happened all over the nation as hospitals try to limit exposure to the virus to other patients and health care workers. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how that might impact women going to the hospital to give birth. But this has also impacted individuals and families facing the end of life issues as well.

What seems to be the most sorrowful to thing to me about having a loved one dying alone is the sense of helplessness that this must give. When my mother was dying, my sister and I played an active part in her last days. We prayed the rosary with her, we talked to her and we could hold her hand. Those memories are priceless to me. When I think back to that time, I remember a few things that helped then, that might be of help now to families going through this difficult time.

1. We managed to get a poster of pictures that featured my mother and the people that loved her. That gave the people who were taking care of her a way to know her as more than just a patient in the bed. It worked too. Her nurses and other caregivers asked me many questions about her life and I thought they talked to her more and treated her a little better when they saw her more as a person. I wrote more about that here.

If I were doing something like that for a Covid patient, I think I would try to print something out at home and mount it to a sturdier piece of paper or poster board and then present it to the hospital in a plastic bag or some kind of wrapping so that they might feel more confident in hanging it in the patient’s room or on the bulletin board in the patient’s room.

2. If the loved one is near death, perhaps an MP3 of music or a playlist that a nurse could leave near the patient so that they could hear it might be comforting. For years I have played with the Peace Together Choir. Their music is available on Spotify and Amazon. The group specifically came together to provide music in a hospice setting. The songs would be very comforting for a Christian in a hospital setting.

3. Praying the rosary together through Zoom or Facetime might be comforting too. My mother was very calmed by the rhythm of the rosary prayers. Two of my sisters’ in law who had been away from the church were also comforted by this prayer as they neared the end of their life.

These are just some thoughts I had that might be helpful to the dying and bring comfort to loved ones that can’t be at the bedside.

Do you have any other ideas that families could use during this pandemic? Share them in the comments.