Outside of the COVID-19 unit on the 6th floor at KP Los Angeles Medical Center (LAMC), is a quiet room. In it, the scent of lavender fills the air, calming music plays, encouraging quotes and art line the walls, laminated packets of information on stress relief and mental well-being are laid out, and hot tea steeps in a corner. LAMC staff can come read, relax, close their eyes, get a neck massage, talk to a mental health professional, sit in silence…or cry. This is the Resilience Room.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all of us, and health care workers on the frontline notably face unique challenges: providing high-quality care while maintaining their composure amidst a highly stressful situation: one where there is so much uncertainty, change, and loss of life. Misty Lahti, RN, BSN, CCRN, CPN, and Marilyn Downey, RN, are co-chairs of the Wellness Committee at LAMC, and came up with the concept of the Resilience Room as a sanctuary for LAMC staff who could use a space to process thoughts, relax, and practice self-care.
“We wanted to create a space where people could go and have their feelings,” says Lahti, a nurse trained in meditation and palliative care and moderator of the Resilience Room. “During this pandemic, the world has suddenly changed…but we’re still coming in and doing our same, demanding job. We are feeling all these new stressors without having the usual ways to cope available: the gym or a swim class, for example.”
Lahti and Downey enlisted the help of Elizabeth Nganga, RN and moderator of the Resilience Room, and Carlos Ramos, LCSW. As a licensed clinical social worker, Carlos guides staff through processing their thoughts and feelings in the Resilience Room, if they choose to talk to him.
Ramos described the unique challenges of being a health care worker in the time of COVID-19. “During the first harrowing weeks of the pandemic, health care workers were under tremendous stress. Clearly the strain associated with the worry about safety, family and life was noticeable. The Resilience Room provides an antidote to ease the effects of fear, uncertainty and doubt about the future. It provides an atmosphere of peace and comfort, a place where staff arrive for doses of psychological and emotional first aid, mental health resources, and a hot cup of tea.” Ramos utilizes his skills as a psychotherapist to provide immediate and short-term psychological care to many of the visitors that experience acute anxiety, panic attacks, relationship and family stressors, and depression.
As an RN and a moderator of the Resilience Room, Marilyn Downey talked about the coping mechanisms many in her field use in times of stress. “Nurses, historically, do not make self-care a priority,” she says, “they usually put themselves last. As a nurse, you cannot let your emotions interfere with your ability to think critically, so you put up a sort of armor and you don’t realize you still have it on when you get home. Beneath that armor are all of these feelings that need care.” The Resilience Room, she said, has provided the opportunity to reach those feelings in nurses and other LAMC staff.
Since early April, there have been more than 1,700 visits to the Resilience Room. This repurposed patient waiting room has received an overwhelming positive response from LAMC staff and physicians, with many of them requesting that it stay available beyond this pandemic. The Resilience Room is currently open Monday through Friday. As various departments within Kaiser Permanente begin to reopen in the coming weeks, the moderators of the Resilience Room–Misty, Marilyn, Elizabeth and Carlos–will eventually return to their normal positions.
As far as the future of the room, the hope is that a budget along with support staff can be facilitated to keep it open. In a post-COVID world, stress and burnout will remain, and the concept of a consistent space for self-care can surely benefit KP employees across our region. With 2020 being the Year of the Nurse and our focus on mental health resources during this pandemic, the Resilience Room was a perfect representation of how far nurses and a mental health worker can go to provide support and understanding to KP nurses, staff, and physicians in the wake of a highly stressful time.
