2 Hawaii hospitals cut quarantine time for some frontline staff, other facilities poised to follow suit
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Close to 10% of Hawaii’s frontline caregivers are off work because of COVID infections or exposures, triggering a worrisome staffing shortage amid the ongoing surge.
Now two Hawaii Island hospitals have instituted new policies to address the shortage, cutting quarantine time for some healthcare workers.
Kona Community Hospital and Hilo Medical Center are the first facilities to follow new CDC guidance that allows some frontline staff to get back to work sooner, even if their symptoms aren’t gone.
“There are some areas of strain. But we’re doing our very best to cover it,” said Elena Cabatu, Hilo Medical Center’s director of public Affairs.
She said hospital is getting full but not because of an influx of COVID patients.
On Friday, staff were caring for 16 people infected with the virus.
Seven of them found out they were positive after being admitted to the hospital for something else.
“The incidental patients, they could be coming in for a surgical procedure or maybe they had a car accident or high blood pressure or diabetes,” she said.
With cases in the community at an all-time high more hospital staff are also being exposed and testing positive. “We have about 50 to 60 that are out ― of our workforce that’s about 1,500,” Cabatu said. “Fortunately, it’s spread across our organization. And we’re able to handle that and manage.”
That’s partly because of a policy change approved by the CDC that cuts the quarantine time for some exposed and infected employees.
Now in some cases, staff who have been vaccinated and boosted can return to work five days after they started having symptoms.
“Employee health is very busy making contacts, bringing them back in, making sure their symptoms are in that manageable phase or they’re asymptomatic,” Cabatu said.
Hilton Raethel, head of the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, expects the practice to expand.
“We anticipate there will be additional hospitals following what Hilo and Kona are doing as the census continues to climb and until we get all the FEMA-funded nurses,” he said, in a statement.
The state has put in a request for more than 700 additional frontline caregivers from the continent to help take some of the stress off staff. The first wave was expected to arrive this weekend but was delayed because FEMA has yet to approve the contract.
Hilo Medical Center says instead of waiting for federal money, it’s in the process of bringing in some temporary staff from the mainland on its own.
A total of 11 nurses are coming. About half are expected to arrive Monday.
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