Lexington nurse battling pandemic on frontlines in Arizona

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) – Suzi Frase, a Lexington nurse who first helped battle the pandemic on the front lines in New York, is on the move again. This time, she’s in Arizona.

Frase says she wasn’t planning on taking any more travel assignments after New York, but when hot-spots starting popping up across the country, she got three job offers – one with Mountain Vista Medical Hospital in Arizona.

“All the COVID numbers here just keep climbing through the roof,” says Frase. “As you walk down the hall and there’s an empty bed and an empty bed and an empty bed, but then you know that it’s only a matter of time. Within two weeks probably we’re going to start filling up.”

Frase says the bright side is the hospital isn’t short on supplies or staff right now, but she says it’ll have to make some adjustments in treatment if things get worse.

“This hospital they have absolutely no idea what they’re in for,” Frase says. “They’re going to have to learn the hard way just like New York learned the hard way where they’re like okay things that usually work that are normal are not going to work anymore.”

Frase says the problem isn’t limited to inside the hospital walls, but also the re-opening process across the country.

“Ideally we wouldn’t have any businesses open.”

She says another issue is some people’s choice to not wear masks.

“If everyone wore a mask anytime they were out and if they were even cautious with the people in their close circles we could cut it down significantly.”

Frase says she’s happy to help wherever she’s needed, but is finding her new assignment a hard pill to swallow.

“I definitely notice already that I’m going to have to be really specific about some self-care to try to get myself through this one because it’s not just the inevitable, this all was preventable, so I notice I do have a harder time this time around.”

Frase says she’s not sure if she’ll stay longer than six more weeks in Arizona, but says she hopes the public health crisis is under control by then.