CREVE COEUR, Mo. — They are moments to celebrate.
Patients recovering from Coronavirus and getting to go home. It's something they are seeing every day at Missouri Baptist Hospital in Creve Coeur.
"A number of patients have been able to get off these breathing machines, they've been able to step down to a regular hospital floor and then they've been able to go home," Dr. Nitin Anand said.
Dr. Anand is an intensive care physician who trained at Johns Hopkins and Vanderbilt. He said it takes a team of people to care for these patients but it's a team that's intent on winning.
"No one wants to be on the sidelines of this," he said. "Everyone is trying to come together to help."
With crowded hospitals like Mt. Sinai hospital in New York City, Dr. Anand said his team is prepared for a surge in patients here.
"What we like to say is that we are like bamboo in a typhoon. We may bend but we will not break," Dr. Anand told us.
Since visitors are no longer allowed at the hospital, the hardest part of recovery according to Dr. Anand is the separation, which is why he wants to get patients home as soon as they are able.
"What they really need is proper nutrition and a lot of physical therapy," he said.
Dr. Anand said what keeps him and his team going are scenes like this. They keep a graph at the hospital of all the victories, even those patients that don't get a standing ovation.
"We call them ICU graduates and that number is building every day. And that gives me hope," he told us.