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Mostly Cloudy Glen Cove pediatricians continue to care for children amid pandemic
Before Covid-19 hit, it was rarely quiet at Cohen Children's Northwell Health Physician Partners General Pediatrics. Laughter, singing, crying and greetings between Glen Cove residents served as the soundtrack at the city’s bustling practice.
“It’s just very different,” said Dr. Loriann M. Stiuso, a pediatrician at the practice. “It looks like a ghost town.”
The pandemic has forced the staff of the practice to split into two teams working separate shifts, so that if one crew became ill, the other could continue do the work. And they have been seeing specific age groups during each time slot, seeing children two and under to make sure they were up to date on their vaccines. Stiuso and her staff have also been providing telehealth, an electronic version health related services.
“A lot of parents are afraid to come in,” Stiuso said. “That’s why we’re more around telehealth. If there’s a chance there’s Covid, we want to try to handle everything we can out of the house.”
Covid-19 has been the topic of most telehealth and phone calls, Stiuso said. Fellow pediatrician at the practice, Dr. Helen Jablonowski-Parada, said that they have been receiving a lot of calls after hours.
And while the office has seen some cases of Covid-19 through testing, which is conducted at the practice or telehealth calls, none of their patients have been sent to the hospital.
“The better thing about pediatrics versus adults is that the virus is definitely not as severe for the most part in kids,” Stiuso said. “Even if they do have a fever, they might be getting a cough, they may just be off or have stomach issues . . . we are able to treat them for the most part.”
With kids staying at home, however, pediatricians like Dr. John Paul Sheehy is seeing less of the usual viruses. “Kids aren’t in school, so illnesses have slowed down tremendously,” he said. “We’re not seeing strep throat or other things we would normally see in the springtime. Fortunately, we are not seeing many children with the Covid, but obviously some have had it.”
He said that he’s had to talk parents “off the cliff” during telehealth sessions because they are worried that their little one could have the virus.
“The kids are just not getting that as severely as a whole, which is wonderful,” Stiuso said. “We have to guide [parents] that it is probably Covid, but you just treat the symptoms and advise them what to watch for.”
When children do come into the office, there are several practices in place to prevent the spread. Roseann Perisa, the office manager at General Pediatrics, developed a no-contact protocol where patients and their parents wait in their cars instead of the waiting room. They are checked in over the phone and once a room is ready for them, they go right in. Additionally, sick children are seen later in the afternoon to prevent those that are healthy from getting sick. “[Parents] seem to feel relieved that we developed a protocol, so there is no exposure to them or to us,” Perisa said.
When children and parents do come in, the doctors and medical assistants are covered in Personal Protective Equipment. “[Children] look at your face, they look at your expression,” Stiuso said. “That’s part of what they notice. Instead you’re all covered up and sometimes they get really scared from that.”
When asked if she was afraid of being exposed to Covid-19, Stiuso said no. “This is what I’m in it for,” she said. “I’m here to help people. This is my time to step up. I feel that strongly. So no, I’m not afraid.”
In fact, she said that she wishes she could be doing more. Another pediatrician at the office, Dr. Patricia Mena, along with a nurse practitioner, Diana Bernier, have been battling Covid-19 in mostly adults at hospitals.
“I know my associate who is there is having a really hard time now because she’s a pediatrician,” Stiuso said. “And having a lot of adults with a lot of health issues . . . that’s really hard. So she’s really stressed out.”
But as this war is beginning to waver, with state Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaking of a phased plan to reopen the state, pediatricians at the practice are reuniting into one team. But they are still advising children to continue practicing social distancing for now. Sheehy referred to children as a “reservoir for viruses.”
“I would encourage social distancing, even though children seem to get not as ill as adults,” Sheehy said. “You wouldn’t want to come home and give it to grandma, who is on medication for high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. Children can be asymptomatic carriers.”
As the office is adding on a mental health counselor to provide their services once a week, a plan made prior to the pandemic, Stiuso is expecting Covid-19 to be a topic of conversation. Fear, grief and the effects of prolonged isolation could negatively impact a child's mental health.
“Kids don’t completely understand it all,” Stiuso said. “Who wants to be locked away in the house?”
