Commissioner delivers moving van of treats to medical workers, counters COVID criticism
.jpg "Sedgwick County Commissioner Sarah Lopez (right) delivers cartons of snacks and energy drinks to Julie Cotton, nurse executive at the Bob Dole Veterans Administration Medical Center. Lopez gathered the supplies through a community donation drive to thank Wichita medical workers for their service during the COVID pandemic.")
As Sedgwick County workers filled a conference room with public-donated treats for the workers at the Bob Dole Veterans Administration hospital Friday, nurse executive Julie Cotton was overwhelmed.
“I’m so humbled, I think I might cry a little bit,” she told County Commissioner Sarah Lopez, who organized the supply drive.
On Friday, Lopez and a crew of county workers delivered about a moving van’s worth of pandemic pick-me-up to five Wichita-area hospitals and two county health agencies, where employees are stressed by a year and a half on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lopez, a former employee of the Ascension Via Christi health system, began a campaign several weeks ago to collect treats and thank you cards for hospital workers after hearing from former colleagues and others of rising fatigue as the pandemic wears on and an organized resistance movement has grown objecting to vaccinations and mask mandates.
“There’s a big difference between last year and this year,” Lopez said. “Last year they were made to be heroes and this year it’s kind of been the opposite. And that’s not any fault of theirs. They’ve been putting their health and safety on the line every day, even before they [could] be vaccinated.”
Lopez is one of two commissioners supporting the county health officer’s recommendation that masks be required in public indoor spaces, but she and Commissioner Lacey Cruse were outvoted 3-2 along party lines on the five-member commission.
The political divide over COVID was on graphic display as the truck full of treats pulled in at Via Christi St. Francis Hospital Friday morning.
In the patient parking lot, steps from where the delivery occurred, someone had parked a mini van covered in crude hand-scribbled slogans such as “DR FAUCHI IS A CRIMINAL.” It also touted an anti-vaccination website that pushes the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and deworming drug ivermectin to treat COVID.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key adviser to presidents Trump and Biden, and numerous other medical experts have urgently warned against using those drugs for COVID because they’re ineffective against the coronavirus that causes it and could be deadly.
Lopez’s supply drive brought in dozens of cartons of snack foods and shipping pallets of beverages. About $4,500 cash was donated that was used to buy more.
Lopez also recruited local elementary school classes to make greeting cards thanking the health workers and she delivered more than 3,000 of those with the treats.
“We really owe a lot to our medical professionals and this is one way we can just say thank you,” Lopez said. “I know it’s not much, but hopefully they realize how much I appreciate them and how much our community appreciates them, because everything we’re donating is from the community.”
Lopez had originally hoped to raise enough care packages for workers at the county Health Department and Wichita’s main hospitals, Wesley Medical Center and the two Via Christi hospitals, St. Francis and St. Joseph.
So many people donated that she was also able to accommodate workers at the VA hospital, Rock Regional Hospital in Derby and Sedgwick County ComCare, which handles mental-health services.
At the VA hospital, Cotton said workers have experienced fatigue during the pandemic like all health-care providers.
But they’ve kept up with the pace and their patients have been supportive and grateful throughout the COVID crisis, she said.
“We definitely feel committed to a very unique mission when it comes to serving veterans and I think that’s something that really keeps us going here,” Cotton said. “ I think that nurses do what we do because we love to do it. But it’s certainly very humbling to see the gratitude that the community has, just people in general saying thank you . . . so it’s very, very nice to see.”
