MIDLAND, Texas — Some of the doctors on the frontline of COVID-19 are those helping patients to be able to breathe, respiratory therapists.
There are around 120 of them here in the Basin.
Holly Baker has been a respiratory therapist for 8 years at Midland Memorial Hospital.
She never imagined she would be treating people for a virus that attacks the lungs in the way COVID-19 does.
“As far as being on the front lines with these patients...you know it’s been scary because you know it affects each patient differently and so it definitely been something we’ve all had to adjust to," Holly Baker, cardio-pulmonary manager at MMH said.
Baker is one of 49 respiratory therapists assigned to a special unit of the hospital treating people they believe have the virus.
As of Friday, 21 people are there and four patients on ventilators.
“They are just like any other patient," Baker said. "They are just like our own family members and we have to give them the same care.”
She is putting her own health on the line, and the threat of potentially bringing the virus home is very real for Baker and her coworkers.
“Am I carrying it? Am I going to take it home to them on my shoe? So yeah a lot of staff is concerned," Baker said. "I think that’s something that they probably think of daily."
Baker says a few of her coworkers have made arrangements to have someone else watch their children in fear of exposing them.
Baker has seen first hand what damage the virus can do to the human body, she was one of the therapists who treated Midland's first fatal case.
“It was shocking, we weren’t really expecting it," Baker said. "No one really takes things seriously like this until it happens in their hometown and so it was definitely something that happened and we were like okay this is real.”
Her message from the frontline to you in your home:
“Like the city, hospital and whole country has said, do what you can do to keep yourself safe and stay at home," Baker said. "This is not the time to be angry or frustrated about not getting into a store like you want, we have got to come together to get through this.”
As of now the hospital only has one confirmed case of COVID-19 at the hospital.
They are treating everyone as if they may be carrying the virus.