The Ledezma Story

---

It takes a special kind of person to work in healthcare under normal conditions.  It takes someone with an exceptional level of heart, dedication, and perseverance to work in healthcare in a rural community. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, Moore County was one of the first and hardest hit communities in the state of Texas. Local healthcare providers stepped up to forge a path into unknown territory; treating those they could in the best way possible with the knowledge they had at the time, and getting the sickest patients to larger area hospitals who had access to medical specialists and different equipment to provide the patient the best chance of survival.

But as the pandemic drew on and became widespread, tertiary care hospitals in the area began to fill up. Then they began to turn away patients from rural communities. Rural hospital staff, though trained and competent, normally did not treat the higher levels of care in their facilities. They found themselves having to step in to treat the sickest patients. What larger hospitals were experiencing had finally hit home and, just like in the larger hospitals, their sickest patients, no matter how well they cared for them, were dying.

Late in 2021, the staff of Moore County Hospital District admitted Veronica Ledezma, a COVID patient whose health was rapidly declining. Very quickly Veronica’s condition deteriorated to the point that she needed to be intubated and placed on a ventilator to receive enough oxygen for her body to continue to function.

The hospital staff had seen this situation many times before with this disease. Once a patient reached the point where the ventilator needed to be used, the survival rate was close to zero. 

But Veronica held on. 

In addition to the hospital staff that was fighting for her survival, Veronica’s family was present to encourage her and support her, even when she didn’t have the energy to continue. 

Each small improvement was a victory for both Veronica and for the hospital staff who were doing everything in their power to make sure that this patient would be an exception. That this patient would survive against the odds that had been stacked against healthcare providers for many months.

Step by step, and with great determination, Veronica successfully fought her way from the brink of death and made it through a disease that had claimed countless amounts of lives. 

And in early 2022, Veronica was released from the hospital and went home to family and friends.

Veronica Ledezma became a symbol of hope to the staff of a rural hospital that had been through so much and seen so many patients leave before their time.

We are currently experiencing technical difficulties with video playback and are working to correct the issue.  We apologize for the inconvenience.