“We have less than two weeks of supply here.”
That from Sue Roger, Sault Area Hospital (SAH) vice president of clinical operations and chief nursing executive, referring to the hospital’s stockpile of personal protective equipment (PPE), including masks, gloves and gowns, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.
Roger made the comment to reporters during a SAH senior management conference call Monday.
Earlier in the day, Premier Doug Ford said Ontario will run out of PPE for frontline healthcare workers battling COVID-19 within a week.
Ontario was expecting a shipment of three million N95 masks from manufacturing giant 3M in the U.S., but that was stopped when President Donald Trump blocked American companies from exporting PPE. An Ontario government source then clarified that it was actually 500,000 — not three million — medical masks held up at the border, but said they had since been released
Still, Roger said “we anticipate a delivery tomorrow, and our second delivery day is Thursday every week. We have had no notice that those deliveries are stalled or on hold so we are expecting our allocation of PPE as we would normally. If we were able to use our stockpiled PPE we would comfortably have more than a month’s supply...but we are not. That is our last resort supply at this time (the hospital’s preference to use masks recommended by 3M).”
“Masks and gowns are in short supply across the province,” Roger emphasized.
“We have undertaken different strategies for mask conservation, and those include allocation of masks to units, to particular staff and really thinking about our community donations of N95 masks that come in…we continue to receive donations (of masks), we are test fitting them and our plan is to continue that even across the Easter weekend to make sure that we have the right equipment for our staff.”
SAH is also using reusable respirators for the hospital’s high-risk departments such as emergency and ICU.
“For the emergency department and ICU we are moving to use reusable respirators that staff and physicians are currently being test fitted for through occupational health (a partnership with Algoma Steel) so that should also help to conserve N95 masks for some of the other departments,” said Dr. Stephen Smith, SAH medical staff association president.
Were COVID-19 to strike the Sault with sudden force today, Roger said SAH has 18 intensive care beds, consisting of 14 Level Three beds and four Level Two beds, with the capacity to ventilate 14 patients in the hospital’s core ICU, with four portable ventilators also available for Level Two, Roger said.
Capacity at this time is 60 per cent in ICU.
“We have lots of space and lots of equipment today for whatever need would come through the door,” Roger said.
In other hospital news, officials said after granting temporary free parking for visitors when COVID-19 first became a local and regional concern, SAH has also initiated a temporary suspension of parking fees for its staff effective April 1.
SAH moved quickly to lift the gates on parking for visitors early in the crisis amid concerns around the transmission of the virus through handling and touching of parking tokens and coins.
“We’ve been looking at every opportunity that we can to support the health and safety of our workers and some of the financial pressure that certainly many families in our community are facing,” said Wendy Hansson, SAH president and CEO, speaking to SooToday.
“We’ll continue with the security and maintenance of our parking lots but the payments that would be typically required to come off the pay stubs of our employees are being removed during this pandemic.”
“It’s for the financial burden that’s been placed on many families at this time and also in recognition of the incredible commitment and dedication of our staff,” Hansson said.
The hospital also recently asked 15 of its employees to decide to work at either SAH or Sault Michigan’s War Memorial Hospital instead of working on both sides of the border over fears of COVID-19 transmission.
“The majority of those folks have opted to work at Sault Area Hospital,” Hansson told reporters.
“There are residents of Sault, Michigan that also work here at the hospital who have elected to remain in their home community as well. We do have one nurse that has temporarily relocated to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario who doesn’t travel back and forth over the border every day now,” Roger added.
The Twin Soo's decision was made by SAH in collaboration with War Memorial Hospital.
Eleven of 12 nurses chose to remain at SAH, Roger said.
Reflecting on the COVID-19 crisis to date, Dr. Silvana Spadafora, SAH chief of staff, said: “we’ve been on a journey of discovery with a disease that’s less than six months old.”
“I want to thank the community for its efforts to protect themselves and their loved ones at this uncertain time. Not only have they been working toward protecting themselves but they’ve been also working to protect our patients, our families, and we, in turn, have felt protected over the past many weeks as COVID is revealing its insidious and hideous personality,” Spadafora said.
