By Cecilia Nasmith
While their primary focus always seems to be COVID, Northumberland Hills Hospital President and Chief Executive Officer Linda Davis said at the June board meeting, April and May were probably the most difficult months of the whole pandemic.
“Wave Three hit us harder, certainly,” Davis stated.
She spoke of the realignment in ICU coverage to take patients from areas where critical care facilities were over-capacity. They also implemented a rescue team to muster in-house resources for this effort.
“We were caring for a number of COVID-positive patients in our ICU,” Davis told the board.
“The biggest stress was provably the stress we all felt in terms of our staff and physicians and the work they were doing as we went through 14, 15, 16 months of this pandemic.”
Each physician and health-care worker was left with little time for families, loved ones, home and other areas of their lives that were precious to them in the faces of work demands that never let up.
“We must truly recognize that our organization was certainly challenged in terms of our human resources.”
Looking for ways to support them, they came up with the Kindness Cart - “a cart full of chocolate bars, things we shouldn't be eating like chips, hand cream, lip balm, all those wonderful things,” Davis said.
It's a small gesture that she hopes conveys a big thank-you for working so very hard for so very long. And Davis was pleased to take a turn with the Kindness Cart.
“I know I certainly enjoyed actually dong it, because you learn from the staff and you have an opportunity to say thank you directly back to them – we recognize it has been a tough time for our health human resources.”
Just that afternoon, Davis was taken by surprise when she realized the NHH occupancy rate had fallen from about 118% three weeks ago to 80%.
“It was very shocking to me,” she admitted.
“We have had very high acuity through April and May, as well as high occupancy – and it's not all COVID. Obviously we are here to support our community.”
In recent weeks, they got the directive from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to resume surgeries and even some non-urgent procedures. And as of that day, they got the directive to do in-patient as well as day surgeries.
Their new Short Stay Unit is an option for patients to spend up to 72 hours being supported and observed without being admitted. IM Care has moved out of the space it occupied in the emergency department to make room for this initiative.
They began their vaccine clinic last month, inoculating 2,100 individuals - “staff, physicians, first responders, police and other service providers throughout the county.
“We are probably about half-way through second doses now. It's a very welcome opportunity for our staff to know many of them are fully vaccinated.”
Davis also noted that NHH has followed suit and joined many of its partners in lowering its flags to half-mast in honour of the 215 lives lost at the residential school in Kamloops, BC.
