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'It's in the community's hands' | Austin nurse shares experience helping COVID-19 patients

Eliana Gill knew she wanted to help out COVID-19 patients since the first positive cases in March.

AUSTIN, Texas — It's been a little more than three months since Austin reported its first COVID-19 cases, and Eliana Gill has worked on the front lines since then.

The registered nurse at Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin normally works in a specialized unit dealing with lungs and kidneys, but she decided to volunteer in the hospital's COVID-19 unit as soon as she could.

"I was on board from the very first week that we had cases in Austin. The second COVID-19 was coming to the U.S., I knew that I'd be one of those people who would be on the front lines from the beginning. I just had this desire to be there and to help people," Gill said.

RELATED: 28% of Austin hospital beds available amid COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Abbott says

She told KVUE she feels better prepared and more organized since March, despite the increase in cases and hospitalizations.

"I'm still treating patients. Some of our treatments have changed. But as a nurse at the bedside, my goal has been to help patients and to help them feel safe and secure in an environment that's new and strange and scary. And so from that standpoint, I'm doing the same thing I did before COVID-19, and I'm doing the same thing during COVID-19," Gill said.

Credit: Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin

Her passion for helping others recently took her to an Ascension hospital in Detroit, where she said learned how to better respond to COVID-19 patients.

"I was one of the volunteers who went, and it was a great experience," Gill said. "I got to see what happens if we get overwhelmed when we don't have the supplies or we don't have the beds, and it just made me more grateful for the fact that Austin has been doing a decent job of keeping the numbers low."

RELATED: 'If we want to honor our fathers, we have to do it safely' | Austin health officials answer COVID-19 questions

As the summer rolls through, Gill wants people to continue wearing masks, practicing social distancing and washing their hands.

"We will definitely get through it. I think it depends a lot on the community, though, at this point, on how safe they're being, on their ability to dampen the virus spread," she said. "So I think that it's not necessarily in the hospital's hands. I think it's in the community's hands at this point."

RELATED: Another Ascension Seton nurse fired for traveling to New York to care for COVID-19 patients

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