A photojournalist reflects on the work done inside hospitals during the pandemic.
The U.S. has lost more than 1 million people to COVID — and the virus isn’t done with us yet. Frontline hospital workers have experienced the devastation up close and in real time. And for one L.A. Times photographer who documented the losses and wins against COVID, looking back at the images she captured and revisiting the hospital rooms where people fought for their lives — spaces a hospital chaplain now calls ‘sacred ground’ — has helped her process the pain and remember the moments of connection and hope.
Read the full transcript here.
Host: Gustavo Arellano
Guests: L.A. Times photojournalist Francine Orr
More reading:
The fight against COVID, a chaplain says, unfolded on ‘sacred ground’
U.S. reaches 1 million COVID deaths — and the virus isn’t done with us
Gustavo: More than 1 million Americans are dead from COVID-19. Frontline hospital workers experience a devastation up close and in real time. And for one LA Times photographer who documented their struggles, looking back at those images, means coming to terms with some hard truths, but also some hope.
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I'm Gustavo Arellano. You're listening to The Times, daily news from the LA Times. It's Monday, June 6, 2022.
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While the US continues to experience the spread of COVID-19 infections with new variants like Omicron, it’s no denying that there’s been a drop… in hospitalizations…in deaths.
Through it all, LA Times photographer Francine Orr was there sharing images from over a dozen hospitals. Francine, welcome to the Times.
[00:01:13] Francine: Thank you Gustavo. It's a pleasure.
[00:01:15] Gustavo: I want to bring us back to two years ago. How did you get that assignment to cover Covid?
[00:01:21] Francine: I self assigned myself. So in the past, I've spent a lot of time in Africa and in India, I've covered extreme poverty. I've covered drug resistant TB, HIV/AIDS, also leprosy. I have a very focused interest in global health and in public health. And so immediately I started calling hospitals, one after another, when I came back, begging if I could get in. And so I was placed in the ICU unit with the nurses and I just kept going back over and over and over again, I would spend time in the emergency department and also the isolation tents.
Gustavo: And then recently though, you did an assignment that involved you putting your camera down, you were actually asked to write about your experience for the LA Times. What was that process like?
[00:02:08] Francine: I'm a photojournalist. I tell stories with my camera. It's not an easy thing for me to reflect and // to write. So one of my editors asked me to look through every frame, all my work throughout the pandemic, and just spend time with it.
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Francine: Look at it, reflect on it. I found it more difficult actually than being in the hospital.
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Francine: When I'm in the hospital, I'm focused, I'm trying to stay well and healthy. I'm trying to stay out of the way. I'm trying not to react emotionally because I can't disrupt the work that's taking place, right? And when I went and I sat down and looked at // my work, it felt gut-wrenching. It felt like my chest was opened, an open wound, a wound that I wasn't even aware that I had. I never had that emotional response in the hospital. I never had that throughout the pandemic. But when I sat down and looked at the work cumulatively it hit me really hard.
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[00:03:06] Gustavo: As you're seeing all these photos again, two years worth of photos. What moment stuck out to you especially?
[00:03:11] Francine: When I photograph as a journalist inside of hospitals, I have to be particularly careful. There's a federal law called HIPAA, and I must follow that law. I must be very careful. I must always have permission. Well, in order to seek permission, that's very difficult during a pandemic. First, I have to be trusted in to the hospital. I have to be very careful with my gear, for example, my, my safety. And I can't photograph anything in the background. Like someone's telephone number, someone's name. I must always seek permission. And that's particularly difficult if someone's family is not there to speak for the patient or if the patient is not coherent enough, I cannot take those pictures. So I saw a whole lot more than I was able to document. So some of the things that really stood out for me was certainly Bob Harris. Bob Harris had been in the hospital for over 30 days. So he and Dr. Kalani, the palliative care specialist at Providence Holy Cross in Mission Hills introduced me to this family over the iPad the day he passed away.
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Francine: I met his daughter. His wife, his son, and, along with Maria LaGonga, one of our journalists at the LA Times, and we were present when they removed the ventilator and he died within minutes after that.
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Francine: And we remained in the room. We saw the last pulse, his last breath taken.
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Francine:The courage, the willingness of families allowing us to document their stories at the most vulnerable times in their life // was an incredible privilege. Another situation was Anna, the day that she came to say goodbye to her father, Mr. Anaya. And her father had agreed that his story would be told and I walked into the room and I realized she was going to be alone with her father.
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Francine:[00:05:01] And so I leaned in and I said, “Look, Anna, I was a daughter too. If you want me to stay in this room with you, I'm here to document whatever you are comfortable // with.” And she agreed to let me stay.
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Francine: [00:05:18] And I saw her lean over // and hug her father after he was removed from the ventilator. I saw her trying to gently close his mouth. I saw and heard her prayers as he died. I saw her stand at the edge of his bed, holding all of his belongings and leaving the room for the last time.
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Francine: When I try to reflect on those moments, it's really too much.
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Francine: I want you to know there were moments of hope. // It was a story with Joe Mozingo and I were doing that at Martin Luther King hospital. Mr. Richard Perry, he just desperately wanted to go home. He wanted to go back to work. He wanted to support his family and he was afraid he was going to lose everything. At the same time, his brothers died of COVID and he could not go to attend the funerals.// And he's laying in the bed for five weeks. We were his only visitors in the hospital. // And so when I saw Mr. Perry, I saw my own father in that bed. I reflected on him. And Gustavo, I got to see him go home.
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Francine: Just in time to see a nurse placing him in a wheelchair. And I saw nurses, one after another rushing into his room, almost leaping over themselves. And they were gitty, and when he was brought out of the room, all the nurses lined up the halls and started to applaud him.
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Francine: And this was an impromptu celebration. It wasn't for the media. It wasn’t for me, it was for them. It was for Mr. Perry. And I was there when he was taken out of the car and needed help to get just to the back door [
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Francine: Where he was so weak, um, after five weeks of hospitalization, because of COVID, he couldn't walk up, even with help, two steps into the house, two or three. And // I got to see him // be home again. And you know what, Gustavo he's back to work today. And he texts me and his family texts me on holidays.
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Francine: And I will always have that link with that patient.
Gustavo: That's, that's incredible. That's absolutely incredible.
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Gustavo: After the break, when COVID wards close, what happens to all those unused ventilators?
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Gustavo: Francine, one of the people that you mentioned that really stuck with you was a hospital Chaplain. You spent some time with him for a story in 2020. You went back to visit him // this year and took photos. Who was he?
[00:08:57] Francine: Chaplain, Kevin // worked with part of a palliative care team, which was led by Dr. Marwah Kalani. And he will be very clear with anyone that speaks to him. He doesn't work alone. He works as a team.
[00:09:20] Chaplain Kevin: It is one of the unique parts of my job as a chaplain. We are the only caregivers in the entire hospital that have that dual role of being called to care for patients and families, but also staff.
[00:09:32] Francine: Throughout the pandemic, they were all wearing isolation gowns, at least an N-95, face shields gloves, doors were closed. So when we // took our tour going back on Easter, it was completely different.
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CLIP: Hey, good morning. So you'll see a very typical layout of the floor. You can see the whole floor down.
Francine: No one was wearing isolation gowns. No one was wearing N-95s. No one was wearing face shields.
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Francine: The // air was filled with nurses talking. I could hear medical equipment. All the doors were open. Everything was different. It was a very odd situation, but it was no longer a COVID unit because the hospital on that day had only two patients.
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Francine: And so when we took this tour, we went from room to room and we concluded the tour in their very room that I first met him in. It was Bob Harris's room. And we walked into this room and it was completely different. It was void of patients. It was completely full of medical equipment and the medical equipment was shrouded with this white plastic.
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Chaplain Kevin: All of these machines that were once used to keep our COVID patients alive and to give them breath where their lungs were failing them. You feel the sacredness that happened here in this room, but with these machines and the work that was being done by the staff that were managing the machines and therefore managing the care of the patient.
[00:11:00] Francine: I was initially unsettled by it. And to me, it looked like ghosts.
Chaplain Kevin: It's almost like when you walk into, like an old cathedral. Very eerie, but also very special. That you know that you're walking into hallowed ground. That's what this room feels like.
[00:11:22] Francine: He asked me to stop and breathe and reflect on the sacred work that was done. Not only in this room, in this hospital, but on the hospitals, around the world,
Chaplain Kevin: thinking about COVID in the past tense. Uh, I don't, I don't want to be reflecting on COVID with surging numbers anymore.
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Gustavo: How was that moment for you when he said reflect on this as hallowed ground as sacred space?
Francine: You know, Gustavo, it hit me pretty hard because throughout the pandemic, working in these hospitals, I was able to maintain my composure. I had to be quiet. I just had to be present to document what was right in front of me.
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Francine: When I went back to reflect, I was overcome with emotions and I… I cried.
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Francine: Every single day I would work in these hospitals. I would come home. I would clean all my gear. I would do my work. And then in the evenings, I would either be reading medical reports or news accounts, or I would be calling my family and friends and I would be begging them, “Please be careful. Please do not go inside with a group of people. If there was no air ventilation, please get // vaccinated,” because I did not want the people that I love to be in a hospital alone without their families to be present. I didn't want them to have to experience what I witnessed firsthand.
Gustavo: We'll have more after this break.
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Gustavo: You were there from the beginning, Francine, we're now almost two and a half years into this pandemic.// Where were the emotions of people? And just // where was their mindset at the very beginning compared to what you're seeing now? //
[00:14:51] Francine: At the beginning, I heard stories of people // out hitting pots and pans outside, you know, celebrating healthcare workers, honoring them. Inside the hospitals, it was very quiet. People didn't know what they were dealing with. They didn't know it was airborne.// I saw dedicated, hardworking // compassionate workers // spending 12 hours plus a day caring for their patients.
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Francine: I also saw patients with no family members at their bedside. At the height of some of the surges, I saw hallways filled with patients on gurneys, filling the hallways. That was really difficult.
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Francine: Throughout the pandemic things changed. Vaccines became available.
AP tape: …At 95% efficacy. This vaccine is extraordinarily effective at protecting you from this virus.
Francine: At times, families were able to visit their family members. That brought comfort to family, it that brought comfort to patients.
AP tape: CDC director Rochelle Walensky says the masks can finally // come off.
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Francine: I also saw a shift, a disrespect, if I can say that toward nurses and doctors who had been caring for families and patients for years– all of a sudden um they were being verbally abused by families denying that this was even um true.
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[00:16:26] Gustavo: The United States just surpassed a million deaths of COVID. How are you doing two years into this?
[00:16:35] Francine: Um, you know, Gustavo, I don't know if I will really know for years to come. I'm still dedicated, we have gone through surges, we have gone through lulls, right? // But also I have to be extraordinarily careful, not only with my health, but I can't // leave a hospital and go get somebody sick, right? On assignment or in my own family. And that's what I do, that's how I cope. But I'm starting to, you know, meet with friends, meet with family a little bit outside, but I'm still cautious. Psychologically, I don't know what the impact is going to be. I think it helps me to be able to, to tell more stories, to, to open that, that wound a little bit. And that, that is, um, talking, you know, talking to doctors and nurses, examining what kind of helps one person, what helps another person. For the medical staff, I think they're struggling. They're tired. // They need our support. They've been through something incredibly traumatizing and I think they really appreciated being seen. Having their stories told. I don't think we can forget about them and forget about their dedication.
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Francine: Some of the nurses are telling me that they're quitting nursing altogether. I'm told some of the hospitals are experiencing staffing shortages. The hospital needs to support their staff. We need to support these medical workers and understand that they have undergone tremendous trauma and they need our compassion. And I want to recognize that they've been through a lot and I need to be compassionate to them.
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[00:18:27] Gustavo: Francine, thank you so much for this conversation.
Francine: Thank you, Gustavo, for the opportunity.
Gustavo: And I invite you to read Francine’s op-ed and her amazing, powerful photos of COVID-19 wards at latimes.com.
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Gustavo: And that's it for this episode of The Times, daily news from the LA Times. Denise Guerra was the jefe on this episode. And our show is produced by Shannon Lin, Denise Guerra, Kasia Broussalian, David Toledo, Ashlea Brown and Angel Carreras. Our editorial assistants are Madalyn Amato and Carlos De Loera. Our engineer is Mario Diaz. Our editor is Kinsee Morlan. Our executive producers are Jazmin Aguilerra and Shani Hilton. And our theme music is by Andrew Eapen. Like what you’re listening to? Then follow The Times on whatever platform you use. I’m Gustavo Arellano. We’ll be back tomorrow with all the news and desmadre. Gracias.
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