Mentally exhausted but hopeful due to the availability of COVID-19 vaccines, Yanktonâs front-line medical workers talk about the fight that, for at least one of Yanktonâs Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurses, quickly became personal.
Since the spring, the ICU at Avera Sacred Heart Hospital (ASHH) in Yankton has basically become the COVID unit, Carrie Heine â a nurse for 41 years, of which 30 have been spent in the ASHH ICU â told the Press & Dakotan.
âI donât think the community realized that we were already treating COVID patients back in April,â she said. âThat was when we started hearing the stories about health-care workers dying. It became very real.â