Beverly Hospital News

The human toll of the COVID-19 pandemic has been especially apparent to Heidi Prieur, FNP, a nurse practitioner in Beverly Hospital’s Emergency Department. She has spent weeks treating critically ill patients whose families can’t visit them due to the visitor restrictions put in place because of the coronavirus. Heidi decided to harness the power of social media, hoping a big company would step in to donate tablets to Beverly Hospital so patients could make video calls in lieu of visiting.

As non-urgent and elective surgeries were canceled at Beverly Hospital to curb the spread of the coronavirus, Alicia Herlihy, RN, LSO, an operating room (OR) nurse, saw this as an opportunity to help her community in its time of need. She volunteered to work in Beverly’s Emergency Department (ED) to help with the anticipated influx of COVID-19 patients. “I’m young, healthy and don’t have kids or anyone at home,” she explained. “I’ll work down there as long as it takes for this to pass through.”

What started as a running club at a Beverly brewery has become a global philanthropic social media movement to help Beverly Hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. When social distancing guidelines went into effect, the Rhino Run Club couldn’t meet in person anymore. Ben Garry, who owns Old Planters Brewing Company in Beverly, where the club originated, teamed up with his friend Scott Jamieson, a friend and captain of the team, to find a way to help the cause. 

Fred Gronberg is always helping his colleagues at Beverly Hospital, on and off the clock. The part-time simulation technician and pet therapy volunteer also works as a corporate trainer with New England Biolabs (NEB), a biotechnology company based in Ipswich. Thanks to Fred’s coordination and NEB’s generosity, the healthcare heroes at Beverly Hospital received more than 9,000 masks to protect them as they treat COVID-19 patients.

The bright lights and loud music of weddings and parties seemed like a distant memory for Matt Knight. WIth social distancing and stay-at-home orders in effect, his North Shore-based event services company, MK Productions, wasn’t seeing much business. But rather than sitting around and doing nothing, he decided to use his skills to brighten the days, or really nights, of patients and staff at Beverly Hospital.

“As a company rooted in science, we were troubled by reports that hospital staff was lacking the safety equipment to ensure basic protections,” said John Letcher, senior vice president of Global Human Resources at Cell Signaling Technology in Danvers. “We see ourselves as part of the Beverly community, and it was only natural for us to want help. We were thrilled to make this donation in a timely manner to help our local hospital.”

When she got the call to work in Beverly Hospital’s COVID-19 testing tent on the first day it opened, Karla Robles, BSN, RN, didn’t hesitate to suit up and join the teams on the front lines of this pandemic. “I wasn’t nervous,” Karla said. “I felt privileged to give back to the community.”

Beverly Hospital has created an Emergency Response Fund, as we prepare to care for a surge of critically ill patients in the coming days and weeks of the COVID-19 public health emergency.

With the money raised by the Cancer Walk in 2018, the team hired a landscaping company to revamp the entrance to the Cancer Institute site at Beverly Hospital, which is below ground.  “This is a population of patients that’s so fragile,” said Karin Leppanen, RN, MS, OCN, nurse manager for Cancer Services at Beverly and Addison Gilbert hospitals. “The staff wanted to make sure the whole person is cared for.”

We’ve all  seen the differently colored ribbons that represent and raise awareness of different cancers — pink for  breast cancer, blue for colon cancer and red for leukemia or kidney cancer. These ribbons were the inspiration for the name of Beverly and Addison Gilbert hospitals’ longest-running Lahey Cancer Institute 5K Walk & Run Team, Ribbons of Hope.