Health & Lifestyle

Story by V. Michelle Bernard
Two committee members representing Allegheny East Conference spoke to the importance of proceeding with caution when making decisions about reopening churches and schools.
 
Gina Brown, dean of the College of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences at Howard University in Washington, D.C., shared that mental illness is on the rise and urged church members not to ignore it. In addition, she added, “Our senior [citizens] are significantly lonely, and everybody is being hit [by the isolation].”
 
Image by EDJ on Pixabay

Story by Visitor Staff

Besides taking care of the physical needs of COVID-19 patients, nurse Crystal Lubis has the privilege of virtually connecting patients to family members during some of their most intimate moments.

Lubis, who frequently attends Potomac Conference’s Capital Chinese church in Silver Spring, Md., is a bedside nurse in the adult intensive care unit at a hospital in suburban Maryland. A nurse for 12 years, she’s frequently on the dedicated COVID-19 ICU section.

“We’re in survival mode right now and it was really sudden. There wasn’t a whole lot of preparation [before the Covid-19 hit the United States], said Marissa Leslie, M.D., chair of Psychiatry at Adventist HealthCare in the Columbia Union Visitor’s “Coping in the Time of Covid-19 conversation series.

“We heard the news stories and it seemed like it was far away. It seemed like as soon as the schools closed, that is when panic set in,” shared Leslie. “And every few days a new restriction would come for public safety, but we just lost the sense of control and when you lose the sense of control psychologically you try to control something. It may be the kids online school or it may be your husband making dinner. Your body starts to feel tenser.”