As hospital numbers fall, fatigued staff get relief at last

When COVID-19 patients inundated St. Louis hospitals, respiratory therapists arriving for yet another grueling shift with a dwindling supply of ventilators would often glance at their assignments and cry, heading into the locker room to collect themselves.

“They were like, ‘Man, another 12 hours of this slog of these on-the-verge-of-death patients who could go at any moment.’ And just knowing that they had to take care of them with that kind of stress in the back of their head,’” recalled Joe Kowalczyk, a respiratory therapist who sometimes works in a...