Health staff furloughed as non-COVID-19 patients drop
Patient volumes are declining at local health care facilities as the institutions are preparing for a surge in patients with COVID-19, an infectious disease caused by the novel coronavirus. As a result, some health care workers are being furloughed until they are needed again, local health care providers say.
Mad River Community Hospital announced Tuesday that it will be furloughing employees across the board because patient volumes have decreased 40% to 70% since the shelter-in-place order, intended to curb the spread of the virus, went into effect March 20.
If the hospital experiences a surge or increased volumes, those employees would quickly be recalled, said Pamela Floyd, the hospital’s chief compliance officer.
“We have to staff the hospital according to volume and right now there’s no volume,” Floyd said.
The furlough is for an indeterminate period of time because the trajectory the COVID-19 outbreak will take and the length of the stay
at-home order are unpredictable, according to a news release from the hospital.
This is an experience that health care providers are experiencing across the board. Providence St. Joseph Health and Open Door Community Health Centers said they have experienced similar drops in in-person visits.
For Open Door, the decline in volume has been primarily in providing dental care since the recommendations for the type of dental treatments that can be provided changed since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Tory Starr, CEO of Open Door. Some dental services are still being provided, but preventative care is no longer happening, he said.
But Open Door had a tough time keeping up with the demand for dental services before the pandemic broke out, so Starr said the clinics are expecting that demand to bounce back once the shelter in place order is lifted.
Open Door dental staff were given three weeks of pay to cover the lag between applying for unemployment benefits and receiving them, Starr said, along with covering the cost of their health insurance through April.
“We’re all about people,” Starr said. “We take care of our own.”
St. Joseph Hospital and Redwood Memorial Hospital are “(redeploying) employees who have been impacted by
drops in volumes in their departments,” Christian Hill, St. Joseph Health’s spokesperson, wrote in an email. They’re being reassigned to areas in need “within the hospitals as appropriate,” he wrote.
“Additionally, for caregivers affected by closures and reduced hours and who have not been immediately redeployed, Providence St. Joseph Health System has invested nearly ($20 million) to guarantee caregivers will be paid as normal through the end of April,” Hill wrote.
All the providers said they’re still committed to providing health care to the community and are shifting their operations to do that in a way that allows doctors and patients to maintain social distancing, such as meeting with doctors over the phone or through video chats.
If individuals need services in person, such as Xrays or emergency services, the providers said the hospitals and clinics are safe for that, but patients should call ahead of time and make an appointment for non-emergency needs.
Mad River Hospital is taking an extra step for patients who might be anxious to come in for a blood draw by allowing them to have their blood drawn in their cars, Floyd said.
Open Door is also still providing vaccines, Starr said.
“The last thing we need is a measles outbreak on top of a pandemic,” he said.