Originally published on December 31, 2020 11:22 am
When the coronavirus hit the U.S., hospitals issued strict limitations on visitors. Nurses and doctors started acting as liaisons to the sick and dying for family members not allowed at bedsides. As deaths reach new daily highs, that work is not getting any easier. The emotional toil of adapting to new dynamics with patients and families at one rural hospital in Livingston, Mont., is a case study of what health care workers are grappling with all over the country.
Framed by the rugged Absaroka Mountains in south-central Montana, Livingston HealthCare looks more like an upscale ski chalet than a medical facility. It s one of more than 1,300 critical access hospitals in the U.S., which are federally designated to increase health care access in rural areas. Here, the hospital has 25 beds and serves a huge region about twice the size of Rhode Island but with a population just shy of 17,000.