Hospitals worry over staff health

As the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients rises more rapidly, a major concern of the leadership of the Yale New Haven Health System is the health and well-being of the system’s 28,000 employees.

Marna Borgstrom, CEO of Yale New Haven Health, and Dr. Thomas Balcezak, chief clinical officer, praised the staff of the five hospitals who have been caring for COVID patients since March and now are seeing a second wave.

“The thing that I’m most worried about … is that we’re able to keep the people who care for people who need the care safe and healthy,” Borgstrom said.

Balcezak also said he is concerned about the staff’s “fatigue and the pressure that they’re under. I think we are all respectful of them. We have I think appropriately been calling them heroes and I’ve had more staff start telling me, ‘I don’t want to be a hero. I just want to be a … nurse, physician, PA and do my job. I have no desire to be a hero.”

He also said he is concerned about reports that medical professionals are retiring early because of the stress of the pandemic.

Borgstrom said the health of the staff is also a budgetary concern, as the health system faces a possible $120 million deficit for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.

“The things that worry me most about the budget are our staff getting sick,” she said.

“Unlike the spring, when the pandemic was concentrated in the Northeast and you saw staff loaned from hospitals in Texas and in Oregon and all over the country, and when we all imported a certain number of so-called traveling nurses to supplement our staff, they don’t exist anyplace right now,” she said.

That is because “the pandemic is so virulent in so many parts of the country right now,” Borgstrom said. Also, she said she was told that traveling nurses, who used to charge $125 an hour, are now charging $350 an hour. “So effectively, there isn’t a way to supplement our staff.”

The Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic both have had outbreaks among their staff, she said.

Balcezak said the hospitals have not stopped less urgent procedures, as they did when the first COVID wave hit in the spring. Known as elective procedures, most have a medical need, he said.

“We do very little truly elective surgery,” he said, estimating those procedures as less than 5 percent.

As for surgeries such as hip replacements, which patients need in order to live normally and without pain, he said, “We’re going to try our best to continue to deliver that and scale back only when absolutely necessary and in very selected areas and be very careful and thoughtful about which procedures we delay.”

Unlike in the spring, “we haven’t seen a downturn” in nonCOVID patients coming to the hospital for serious issues.

“I’m glad for that on one hand, because it means that people are receiving the necessary care,” Balcezak said. “But it’s difficult to accommodate on the other hand, because in addition to the regular things we’re seeing, gallbladder attacks, heart attacks, strokes, we have the numbers of patients with this novel coronavirus. … So it’s almost as if we’re in a normal November and on top of that normal November we’ve added 413 additional patients.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, there were 417 COVID-positive patients in Yale New Haven’s five hospitals: 217 at Yale New Haven Hospital, 124 at Bridgeport Hospital, 28 at Greenwich Hospital, 34 at Lawrence and Memorial Hospital in New London and 14 at Westerly Hospital in Rhode Island.

Balcezak said during this wave “fewer of them are in the ICU, fewer of them are intubated than they were in the spring.”

Health system spokesman Vincent Petrini reported that Tuesday there were 1,337 patients compared to 1,541 available beds, which can be increased to 1,864 if needed. There were 171 patients in intensive care, which has a 212bed maximum, and there were 89 patients on ventilators, 57 of whom were COVID patients. The hospitals have 199 ventilators available, he said.

Balcezak said each facility, including doctors’ offices and clinics, have plans in place to increase capacity if needed. “It’s really looked at by facility and by treatment type,” he said.

Yale New Haven Hospital also announced Tuesday restrictions on accepting toys and other gifts for patients at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital.

“Within Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital (YNHCH), a beloved tradition during the holiday season has been accepting donations of toys and other items from our generous community donors,” said Cynthia Sparer, senior vice president of operations and executive director, children’s hospital and women’s services at the children’s hospital.

“As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and guidance from our hospital’s Infection Prevention specialists, our donation guidelines for this year have changed. Out of an abundance of caution, we are not able to accept in-person donations or items collected in toy drives to benefit our pediatric patients,” Sparer said in a press release.

Donors can still help by taking part in the Toy Closet Program, choosing an item in the Children’s Hospital Wish Book, donating an item from the Child Life Wish List or contributing to one of the funds that support the hospital.

For more information, contact the Yale New Haven Hospital Office of Development at 203-6889644 or giving@ynhh.org. To donate to the Toy Closet Program, contact the Yale New Haven Hospital Auxiliary at 203-688-5717 or auxiliary@ynhh.org.

“A medical treatment can be scary and lonely for a child,” said Diane Petra, co-chairwoman of the Auxiliary Toy Closet Program, in the release. “While 2020 has changed many things, the one constant in the world is the smile on a child’s face when they receive a new toy. We remain committed to supplying toys for our pediatric patients 365 days of the year, thanks to the generosity of our caring community of donors.”