INDIANAPOLIS — Around this time last year, healthcare workers began receiving their COVID-19 vaccinations.
Those at IU Health Methodist Hospital were some of the first healthcare workers in Indianapolis to get the shots.
It was a monumental day for healthcare workers who got the Pfizer vaccine last year.
"Having that hope of getting that vaccine and going in that step in the right direction, there's no other way to say it than pure excitement," Joe Majchrowicz said.
He is a nurse in the emergency room and ICU at the hospital. Sometimes he is treating COVID-19 patients.
"Our hospitals are overcrowded," Majchrowicz said. "Our ratios are through the roof right now. They're not what they used to be, you know, we're just seeing more patients every single day."
Frustrating. Challenging. Tiring. Those are all words he used to describe the reality of COVID-19 right now.
Dr. Steve Roumpf lost his father to COVID-19.
"There's many of us that have lost people to this pandemic," Roumpf said. "And there's many more, they're going to lose more people. I don't wish that on anybody."
Roumpf said he has never seen the emergency room look like this before in his career.
"Things are rough. In all honesty, we're very full other hospitals, hospitals are full," he said. "We're trying to get creative so that we can still accommodate the sickest of the sick patients for the state and our community."
WRTV asked healthcare workers what they hope to see a year from now.
"I would hope that at least half the people who aren't vaccinated so are now vaccinated and hopefully by then that other half we didn't get vaccinated, had gotten COVID and lived," Roumpf said.
Roumpf said he hopes we aren't seeing these surges.
Majchrowicz said he "absolutely" still has hope.
"I'd like to believe they're still good out there and humanity and people are going to do the right thing and get vaccinated and go back to being normal," Majchrowicz said.
