Kaweah Delta Chief Executive Officer answers community's COVID-19 questions
Kaweah Delta Chief Executive Officer answers community’s COVID-19 questions
Visitor policy changes, capacity for second wave, hospital challenges and
more discussed.
VISALIA – Are there any updates on the no-visitor policy? Given the
recent protests, how well equipped is Kaweah Delta to handle a surge of
patients? What is the status of antibody testing for employees? As the
number of cases rise in Tulare County, many people have questions and
concerns about COVID-19. In an online video-conference this week, Gary
Herbst, Kaweah Delta’s Chief Executive Officer, answered questions
from Tulare County residents.
Question: Are there any updates to Kaweah Delta’s no-visitor policy?
Answer: Kaweah Delta evaluates the visitor policy every week and effective Friday,
June 5, it has decided to allow both parents to visit patients in the
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, however, only one designee may stay overnight.
The unit has large, private rooms and houses three negative pressure rooms,
where a patient can be isolated if needed. Otherwise, the no-visitor policy
has not changed. There are still no-visitors allowed with exceptions made
for: end-of-life patients, labor and delivery/pediatric patients and dementia/developmentally-delayed
patients needing family/caregiver support for safety. Kaweah Delta continues
to watch COVID-19, bracing for the possible surge that may come as the
community begins to reopen. If things begin to stabilize and remain calm,
Kaweah Delta will make changes to its policy.
Question: How well equipped is Kaweah Delta for a new wave of COVID-19 that may
be seen due to the protests?
Answer: If a new surge of COVID-19 patients hit Kaweah Delta, there would be capacity
to care for patients. Kaweah Delta Medical Center currently has 435 beds
and an occupancy rate of 79 percent, while back in March prior to COVID-19,
Kaweah Delta Medical Center was a 403-bed facility with an 80 percent
occupancy rate. Additionally, Kaweah Delta has 45 acute rehabilitation
beds on its campus in southwest Visalia. Kaweah Delta continues to coordinate
with the County, performing testing, and in exploring use of the Porterville
Developmental Center. Staffing is one of Kaweah Delta’s biggest
challenges with employees testing positive for COVID-19, many of them
nurses, it has been a challenge to fully staff the hospital as the patient
census grows. Kaweah Delta is working with the County to enlist the help
of the 120 volunteer health care workers enrolled with the County.
Question: What is the status of Kaweah Delta’s antibody testing?
Answer: Kaweah Delta has offered antibody testing to 3,000 of its 5,000 employees,
beginning first with those who had the greatest interactions with COVID
patients. To date, 880 employees have been tested with only 18 of them
testing positive for the antibodies. Employees are still scheduling appointments
for testing, so final results are not yet available.
Question: Does Kaweah Delta have a plan to assist in its financial recovery?
Answer: Kaweah Delta is working on a plan and will meet with its Board of Directors
over the next few weeks to present the budget to them in June for approval.
Due to the financial impacts of COVID-19, Kaweah Delta is exploring options,
which include a hiring freeze, no employee raises, looking to cut services
that are subsidized, etc. Kaweah Delta is waiting on possible stimulus
funds from the Federal and State government that could greatly affect
its budget. There is a lot of uncertainty, but we are working on our plan.
Question: Is there anything currently impacting Kaweah Delta’s ability to
discharge patients?
Answer: Right now, Kaweah Delta has 22 patients that are in the hospital that
are COVID-19 negative and should be discharged to a nursing home, however
nursing homes will not take those patients in accordance with the State’s
new regulations governing nursing homes. The State now requires repeated
testing of these residents to ensure that hospitals are not allowing COVID-19
positive patients back into nursing homes. Kaweah Delta is working with
the County to see if the State would set up the Porterville Development
Center as a healthy nursing home alternative so that Kaweah Delta can
discharge these patients in the future and open up capacity.
Question: With elective surgeries now scheduled, are Kaweah Delta’s operating
rooms busy?
Answer: Yes. Kaweah Delta began doing elective surgeries the week of May 18. It
did 51 surgeries on May 20 and is currently back to where it was pre-COVID-19.
Kaweah Delta has been deliberate about how it has resumed elective surgical
services, limiting inpatient surgeries to eight per day. Next week, Kaweah
Delta will increase that number, while keeping watch on what is happening
in the community. If there is a surge of COVID activity, Kaweah Delta
will be able to pull back the number of surgeries it performs.
Question: Why have we not heard how COVID is affecting the homeless?
Answer: Our Street Medicine program, which provides care to Tulare County’s
most vulnerable patients: the undocumented worker, uninsured, and homeless
population, has recently started back up to test people in homeless encampments
for COVID-19. They swab the individuals and bring the specimens back to
the lab for testing. They have had low positivity results in the homeless
community.
Kaweah Delta shares COVID-19 information and regular updates with the community
on its website at
www.kaweahdelta.org/COVID19 and on its social media accounts.