Nurse leader Emily Saito Washington Post video

In a Washington Post video aired Sept. 11, a nurse leader, a physician and Baptist Health CEO Troy Wells ask people to take COVID-19 seriously, saying the COVID-19 unit at Baptist Health-Fort Smith is at capacity. Among the victims of the disease was a beloved nurse of more than 20 years at the hospital.

“I see my nurses struggle a lot with it because we’re doing everything we can and everything that we’ve learned by evidence and research recently, to be able to fix them, or cure them or help them recover,” nurse Emily Saito says in the video. “But sometimes, it doesn’t make a difference, and they don’t make it. A lot of them, actually, you know, we — we have lost quite a few patients to it.”

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She and physician Dr. Arturo Meade talk about how hard the death of LaVerna Newman hit them. Hers was among 56 deaths in Sebastian County, and Wells warns that with schools open and cases high, hospitalization could rise.

“I just want to remind America that this is real,” Saito says. “This world, right now, is just divided, a lot of times, people are feeling like. So, this is the one thing that we can really come together with, is trying to stay healthy, and trying to look out for, you know, our neighbor and our friends.”

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