Watching someone die isn’t easy.

Jodi Kipila has witnessed it far too many times, often from right beside their hospital beds.

Death is a part of the job when you’re a registered nurse in an emergency room. But it has reached a whole new level of cruelty in the age of the coronavirus, as the loved ones of patients have been barred from visiting them, unable to say goodbye.

So nurses like Kipila at CentraState Medical Center are there instead, holding the hands of the dying.

“What’s hard is you see a patient dying with no one here,” said Kipila, who has worked at the Freehold hospital since 1997. “All I can do is FaceTime with their family. That’s rough. Here I am a perfect stranger, sitting with their family, letting them watch their loved one on my phone."

She paused to collect her emotions, then continued.

“I just put myself in their shoes," Kipila said. “I act as their family. ‘I’m the daughter to this man right now.’ That’s all I can do. ... But I’m glad that I am there for the families, and they’re not alone.”

Hospitals throughout New Jersey have long been forced to prohibit visitors due to the highly contagious nature of the coronavirus. It has left nurses to fill the void, serving as proxies for loved ones as their patients take their final breaths — whether they spend a few quiet minutes with them or connect them with their family over a video call.

But the care those CentraState nurses are providing is taking an emotional toll. They are going through the grieving process themselves in a pandemic that has resulted in at least 6,442 deaths statewide.

Kipila has held the hands of five ailing people since early March, she said.

“They were alive one moment, the deterioration comes, and an hour later they’re gone," she said. “It’s awful."

Deborah Burg has spent most of her two decades in nursing as a caretaker for patients. But her new role demands even more — one part nursing, one part psychology.

As the nurse manager in CentraState’s emergency department, Burg lends a sympathetic shoulder to her emotionally devastated staff.

“I spent a lot of years at the bedside as an ICU nurse and an [emergency department] nurse," she said. “Now, as this thing has consumed our entire unit, I’ve become a therapist."

Nurses in emergency rooms are used to dealing with death. But since CentraState admitted its first patient with COVID-19 symptoms March 5, the losses have been unprecedented.

Witnessing it “takes on a whole different meaning," Burg said.

“All those years when I was bedside as a critical care nurse, the families were there," she added. “They were able to hold their loved one’s hand at the end."

The stories of family members forced to say their final goodbyes via FaceTime video call are heart-wrenching — and “all-too-common" at one of Monmouth County’s largest hospitals, Burg said.

“We have iPhones in the units," she said. “If the family wants to talk or vice versa, we take these phones and a nurse is going in there, they’ll hold the patient’s hand for a few minutes and hold the phone in their other hand while FaceTimeing the family."

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The emergency department medical personnel at CentraState Healthcare System in Freehold. Counter clockwise from bottom left: Kimberly Weiner, Binita Beam, Jodi Kipila, Geri Sobolewski, Deborah Burg and Laurie Gambardella.

Just being there

One by one, the nurses made their way to Room 46 of the emergency department on April 21.

I was assigned to report on what’s happening inside an ER. The objective was to capture a snapshot of the day from the viewpoint of the medical workers on the front lines of the crisis.

I went in with a list of questions, but ultimately let the nurses do the talking. Without prompting, the interviews veered toward their experiences directing the FaceTime videos.

Kimberly Weiner, an emergency department tech, said the video chats will never replace the presence of family members at the bedside of the dying.

But “it’s something," she said.

“I feel honored to be able to be there when their family cannot be," Weiner added. “To hold their hands and give them that little bit of hope they have left… at least they feel like they have somebody by their side."

Binita Beam was a week removed from passing her board exams when she joined the ER team of approximately three dozen medical personnel in mid-March. There was no training in medical school to take on the role of a loved one for someone in the late stages of life.

“Taking the place of the family at bedside, that’s the toughest part," Beam said. “Who would’ve ever thought FaceTime would be the thing at the end of life?"

How does it affect them?

Laurie Gambardella scoffed at the question. CentraState’s director for the emergency department wasn’t being rude.

“There’s no way you don’t take it home with you,” she said. “I’m not at the bedside, but I see the toll it’s taken on our nurses, our techs and our doctors.

“Everybody takes something home with them.”

Burg’s role as nursing manager requires her to implement directives, handle documentation and fill in the gaps in patient care when necessary.

As the resident therapist, Burg does her best to maintain her composure while listening to the stories of her nurses’ grief.

But she’s human, too.

“I don’t want to bring (the emotions) home to my family, so I’ll cry a lot in the car," Burg said. “If I’m going to lose it, I try to go into a different room.

“I don’t want anyone to know how frightened I am because that will only make others more frightened. It never gets any easier."

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Keith Sargeant may be reached at ksargeant@njadvancemedia.com.