‘The fear was palpable.’ Tri-Cities hospital staff honored for COVID pandemic’s tough times

During the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Tri-Cities, intensive care unit nurse Sonya Karanjia held the hands of her patients during video calls with their loved ones as they were dying.

“In 20 years I have not seen so many people die,” said the Kadlec Regional Medical Center registered nurse Tuesday, as the community honored Kadlec caregivers and other staff who served throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

A bronze plaque was unveiled that will serve as an enduring reminder of staff’s compassion, grace and commitment.

The pandemic continues, said Dr. John Matheson, medical director for Kadlec’s emergency departments in Richland and Kennewick.

But now the days of fear and uncertainty from 2 1/2 years ago have transitioned to the relentlessness of the pandemic, he said.

Caitlien Meyer, senior medical assistant, remembers starting to see “weird” lung X-rays of pneumonia patients, that eventually made sense as COVID-19 diagnoses began.

The Kadlec urgent care clinic where she works was the first medical office in the Tri-Cities to see a positive COVID-19 test result, she said.

Registered nurse Heather Whiting remembers the night the COVID-19 unit at Kadlec opened during the early days of pandemic chaos, when little was known about the new disease.

“I have seen strong nurses break down in tears because they can’t face another dying patient that they can do little for and need to rise again and go to work,” she said. “I have cried with families quarantined away from their loved ones as they struggled with how to say goodbye over video chat.”

She and her workers were scared that they would bring the coronavirus home to their families in the early days of COVID-19, when how the virus was transmitted was not clearly understood.

“The fear was palpable,” said Dr. Phani Kantamneni, medical director of the Kadlec ICU.

There was fear initially when staff looked at their family before they left for work at the hospital and in grocery stores where they saw essential workers on the job. And for doctors, there was fear as they saw their own experience come up short.

They were uncertain how bad the pandemic could get and how long it would last, he said.

Kadlec night ICU nurse

Karanjia, who works the night shift in the Kadlec ICU, said ICU nurses were not used to losing every patient.

They were not used to losing young people. They were not used to multiple people in the same family dying, she said, reading from social media posts she wrote earlier in the pandemic.

“It seems no matter how hard or fast we work, we keep losing,” she read.

She’s worked as an ICU nurse for 20 years and saw many other experienced nurses switch to other nursing positions “because their hearts and their bodies can no longer take the abuse of caring for COVID patients for so long,” she read from a post.

Those who died may be only a small portion of the Tri-Cities area’s residents, but each is important to the people who loved them and are left behind, she said.

In Benton and Franklin counties, 725 residents have died due to complications of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to the Benton Franklin Health District.

Karanjia also posted about some of the bright spots during the grueling work of the pandemic, like a note from an elementary school student and food sent to hospital staff by Dovetail Joint, Porter’s Real Barbecue and Fat Olives.

Her 14-year-old son made her a playlist of classic and new-to-her music, she said.

Listening to it in the night ICU was “like a hug in the darkness.”

She continues to grieve for patients who died, she said.

The plaque unveiled Tuesday on Kadlec’s 7th floor Garden Terrace will be a physical reminder of “the tragedy and triumph that occurred in this hospital,” she said.

Reza Kaleel, Kadlec chief executive, said that when he is an old man and looks back at the pandemic years he hopes that he remembers the abundance of courage, resilience, teamwork, compassion and love that staff showed.

The bronze plaque was donated by the board members of the Kadlec and Tri-Cities Cancer Center foundations, the Kadlec Community Mission Board and the Kadlec executive team.