'None of us signed up for this': Lumberton hospital struggles with crush of COVID patients

Of the 53 COVID-19 patients in UNC Health Southeastern in Lumberton on Thursday, only two had been vaccinated, officials said. None of the seven patients in the intensive care unit had been vaccinated.

"We are full, and then some," Stephanie Fitchpatrick, critical care director at the hospital, told WRAL News during an exclusive visit to its ICU on Thursday. "All of our staffed beds are full in the ICU, and we do have patients that we’re caring for in the emergency department as well."

ICU nurse Kaitlin Richardson said the staff is trying to soldier on amid the crush of critically ill patients, but it's becoming more difficult by the day.

"We’re doing the best we can at this point to survive," Richardson said. "It’s emotionally straining. Our unit is struggling. Our hospital is struggling."

Many of the patients who arrive at the ICU are terrified, she said, so she and the other health care workers on the unit try their best to comfort them, knowing that many won't leave alive.

"A lot of us are numb to the emotions. We shouldn’t have to struggle every day to come in and see the kind of patients that we do," she said. "We hear all the time, 'This is what you signed up for.' None of us signed up for this. We signed up for change, we signed up for healing. And we’re not getting that anymore."

Fitchpatrick and Richardson said getting more people vaccinated in Robeson County is critical to reducing the strain on the hospital and its ICU.

Debbie Hamilton said she plans to help persuade as many people as she knows to get their shots as soon as possible because she knows firsthand the dangers of waiting.

"I kind of put off getting the vaccine, and when I decided I wanted to take it, I got diagnosed with COVID," said Hamilton, who celebrated her 65th birthday in UNC Health Southeastern.

A doctor there warned her that, if she had to be put on a ventilator, she might never be taken off, she said.

"That was really an eye-opener," she said. "Scared me out of my mind, but it brought me to reality."

Hamilton, who is now recovering and might soon go home, said she never was against the vaccines. But she said she has never been very sick in her life and worked by herself throughout the pandemic without any problem.

"I never really worried about COVID," she said. "When this happened to me, it made me realize the importance of the vaccine."

She said she wants to help her community avoid the mistake she made.

"I wish we had a higher rate of vaccinations, and I will promote to whoever I get the chance," she said. "That’s all I can do at this point."

All Richardson and her fellow workers can do at this point is hold on, as hospital officials said they don't expect to see the patients volume decline for several more weeks.

"As a whole, our unit is not the same that we were a year and a half ago," Richardson said. "We need support from our community. We’re in this fight together."