SCRANTON, Pa. — Sirens on the streets of downtown Scranton were a good thing on this day. The sound was meant to reach the workers inside each of the city's hospitals.
The show of appreciation came from other frontline workers, police officers, and ambulance workers who decorated their vehicles with signs of gratitude.
"We have patients on the ambulance for maybe 15, 20, 30, 45 minutes at most. These nurses have to take care of these patients for hours and days, and they deserve just as much respect and accolades as we have," said Bruce Beauvais, Pennsylvania Ambulance.
Commonwealth Health, which owns Moses Taylor Hospital and Regional Hospital of Scranton, organized the effort. The parade made its way past those facilities and then on to Geisinger Community Medical Center.
"I think it's a big boost," Michael Brown, CEO of Moses Taylor and Regional. "Our teams are working hard; they've been out here for weeks taking care of patients in our Scranton community. For them to see other people recognize their work, I think, is tremendously important."
The parade was held, appropriately, on National Nurses Day and provided a little respite for the hospital workers who have been caring for COVID patients for weeks.
"A certain amount of resilience is needed from anyone that's going to be responding to these types of emergencies, whether you're an EMT, paramedic, firefighters, law enforcement, and of course, our nurses in our hospitals," Beauvais said.
"We're going to be fighting this thing for a while. How far are we into it? Weeks. How far is it going to go? We don't know. So, anything we can do to lift the spirits of our troops, we want to do," Brown said.
They made sure that message was heard loud and clear.