Ready to care for others, but scared to go home.
That’s how a hospital worker in the East Bay feels every time her shift is over. The worker worries she will bring the coronavirus home to her family.
The worried mom has even resorted to sleeping in her car because she can’t find a safe temporary place to spend the night.
“I just feel the energy in the emergency room has just shifted so much in the past month, it’s really scary,” said Jamie Levingston, a San Leandro Hospital employee.
Levingston is a lab assistant at the hospital. Her job is is to draw blood from her patients at San Leandro Hospital. But lately, she’s been comforting COVID-19 patients as they draw their finals breaths.
“I do have one patient that I went in and held his hand and told him that he’s strong, and to keep fighting,” Levingston said. “And he opened his eyes and he looked at me.”
After her work shift is over and her face mask comes off, that’s when the overwhelming anxiety kicks in.
“How do you know that you’re not bringing the virus home?” she said.
Levingston is talking about the home in Alameda that she shares with her 14-year-old daughter, Eva.
“She’s very asthmatic,” Levingston said. “She’s been hospitalized a few times for her asthma.”
Levingston isn’t taking any chances.
“I can’t afford a hotel room obviously every day,” she said.
So Levingston has given up sleeping comfortably in her bed to dozing off in her car — all to protect Eva.
“She’s all I have left,” Levingston said.
Levingston said she wants Alameda County to follow San Francisco’s lead and reserve hotel rooms for frontline health care workers who do not want to expose their loved ones.
“They’re doing wonderful things for the homeless, which I think is amazing,” she said. “You also have to think about health care workers, we’re in need too.”
Airbnb recently launched the Frontline Stays Program. The company, which has been dealing with a wave of cancellations because of the pandemic, is now focusing their efforts on housing first responders.
Levingston has signed up for the program. An Airbnb representative said the company is working to find Levingston a place to stay that is close to the hospital.
Source: NBC Bay Area
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