Opinion: Keeping families out of ICUs no longer makes sense as the pandemic eases
On, December 9, 2020, my mom, brother, and I waited in a cold, wintery drizzle outside the local hospital in my hometown in southern Colorado, anxiously hoping to be allowed to see my dad for the last time. After contracting Covid-19, he had been in the intensive care unit (ICU) for nearly a month and his condition had deteriorated to the point that we were summoned to the hospital to say our goodbyes.
Until that day, my mom, brother, and I had seen my dad just once since he was admitted to the ICU, and even that “courtesy” was granted only because of my dad’s decades of service to the hospital as a gastroenterologist. We resigned ourselves to unsatisfying FaceTime interactions, unable to provide the comfort and touch my dad needed — and deserved — from his family.
