Patch Hero, Nurse Ann Lubeski: ‘It’s My Job. It’s What We Do.'

BRANFORD, CT — Mark Lubeski daydreamed about the two of them in their retirement watching the sunrise on Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park.

Ann, his wife of 39 years, had decided that after 40 years as a nurse at Yale New Haven Hospital’s Saint Raphael campus, she was ready for retirement. It was time. She’d cared for thousands, and the Nightingale Award-winning registered nurse had given her best, the last many years with cardiac patients.

But then the new coronavirus happened.

Just as she was preparing to announce her retirement from nursing, the hospital made its own announcement: Her floor would be converted to a COVID-19 floor beginning April 1.

The couple never went to meet with the retirement planner. And despite pleas from her family to walk away, she could not.

“She told us, ‘It’s my job. It’s what we do.' That ought to be a slogan for all first responders,” Mark Lubeski said.

Lubeski said that “despite the pleas from her family that she has helped literally thousands of people in her 40-plus years and there was no shame in stepping away,” she could not and did not.

On Monday, when Patch spoke to him, Ann was doing a 12-hour shift at YNHH at Saint Raphael’s.

“She gets up, puts on all her PPE gear and goes into the trenches,” he said.

‘They’re scared they're going to die’

On the first day the 30-bed floor opened as a COVID-19-only floor, there were three patients. By the end of the week, he said, there were 28.

Ann had been working with cardiac patients, many waiting on elective surgeries. Those patients had family visiting daily. But they are gone, and in their place are COVID patients. And they have no family visiting. Now, one of Ann’s roles is to help patients communicate with their families via video chats.

Mark said that many are now former nursing home patients who are “scared, afraid they are going to die.”

But they have Ann.

“It has to be so hard. They’re scared. The more they are in isolation, the more they worry. They used to have family; now they have the nurse.”

This nurse though is the one you’d want near you, Mark says. She’s right there, listening and caring for those ill with COVID-19 and frightened. Mark says patients have been sharing so much of their lives with her.

She doesn’t consider herself a hero

Ann graduated from nursing school four decades ago. She’s been at Saint Raphael's ever since. Mark says she does not consider herself a hero. On a rare day off, the couple took a drive along Route 154 on the shoreline. They noticed a lot of signs in yards and on utility poles thanking health care workers.

“Seeing those almost brought her to tears; she was overwhelmed,” Mark said.

The family is still worried about Ann, who is in her early 60s. There is her physical health, of course, given where she works — although she is vigilant about her personal protective equipment, Mark said.

Emotional health is another matter.

“This takes a toll on nurses. Imagine. Some cannot do it. They have young children, families, some are staying in dorms — worried about their families, so they stay away. This is taking an emotional toll.”

But Ann couldn’t stay away.

“My brother and I were talking about this, and he said — and he’s right — she just couldn't walk away from her fellow nurses in a crisis,” Mark said.

“I know that if God came down from heaven and said to her, ‘Walk away, retire,’ she’d say she couldn’t because ‘It’s what we do.’”

With luck, Ann and Mark soon will have the chance to watch the sunrise on Cadillac Mountain.

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