Massachusetts nurse prints family pictures for COVID-19 patients
Jeanna Barbieri, an E.R. nurse at Lowell General Hospital, joins 'Fox & Friends' to explain her plan to plan to bring patients' families to their bedside.
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A Massachusetts emergency room nurse is bringing a dose of happiness to the bedsides of coronavirus patients who are unable to see their families during a no-visitor policy meant to protect against the disease's spread.
Jeanna Barbieri, battling on the front lines of the COVID-19 outbreak at Lowell General Hospital, has been printing out family photos to bring comfort to the sick. Barbieri told “Fox & Friends Weekend” on Sunday that she launched her plan after being the last person one of her critical patients saw before dying.
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“I was the last one to spend time with her and, while that’s a truth that many of us are facing all over the country in every hospital, it just really touched me and I was feeling the weight of the situation,” Barbieri said.
An old friend Barbieri went to high school with then reached out to thank her for all she and other health care workers were doing to help the sick.
“After we started talking, I found out that his father was in our ICU and I offered to bring in pictures of his family,” Barbieri said.
The ER nurse picked the photos up from her friend’s mailbox and brought them to the hospital, deciding that this was something that could help a lot of others battling the disease.
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Massachusetts has at least 36,372 confirmed coronavirus cases, trailing only New York and New Jersey in the U.S. The virus has killed 1,560 in the state as of Sunday.
With Barbieri’s plan to bring smiles to patients’ bedsides, she said families “feel like they’re finally getting to do something” and feel they have a “tiny bit of control” in taking care of loved ones.
Friends and family of patients at Lowell General Hospital can email photos to Barbieri at PicturesForPatients@lowellgeneral.org. Barbieri prints out the photos and delivers them to the patient’s unit.
Following the project’s launch, Barbieri said she received a message from the daughter of a woman who sent pictures to her ill husband that “really made all of this worth it.”
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“The daughter told me that it was the first time her mother had smiled and had hope for days, and that just really touched me,” she said.
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