CLEVELAND — As COVID-19 raged, ventilators, devices that assist a patient who cannot breathe because their lungs can’t function on their own, were at the forefront of many conversations.

St. Augustine Health Ministries has provided care to senior adults and critically ill patients in Cleveland since the 1960s. The campus started as a nursing home and continued to expand. The campus comprises four different buildings: Emerald Village Senior Living, Holy Family, St. Augustine Child Enrichment Center and the health campus. 

Sara Lyons is a registered respiratory therapist and manager of the ventilation unit at St. Augustine. She said the floor is one that doesn’t always see positive outcomes for patients, but she said sometimes patients surprise her, like a patient who was not supposed to live, but is now going to go home with her family.

Lyons said she always strives to do all she can when families need her support.

“It’s really hard to see the family go through that. You almost feel like you are a part of the family,” she said. “It’s not unusual to see us crying with the family members and in there holding their hands,” Lyons said. “There’s a lot of different ways I can empathize with them.”

The ventilator unit has 19 ventilators and room for 14 tracheotomy patients.

“Because we have a vent unit and dialysis unit, there has to be a registered respiratory therapist here 24 hours a day,” Lyons explained. 

Lyons is also in charge of training all the staff on the ventilator floor. She said she always makes sure that the patients are the priority.

“Whatever we can do to make them more comfortable, that’s what we do,” said Lyons. 

Dana Carns, the facility’s advancement director, said the staff makes St. Augustine so special.

“They [the staff] come in here and they give their hearts and their souls,” Carns said. “They leave families behind every day. And they come in here to take care of somebody else’s family.”