Hospitals in the Detroit area are starting to report employees testing positive for the coronavirus and others showing symptoms.
Munson Medical Center in Traverse City says they’ve taken additional steps to keep nurses and doctors treating coronavirus patients safe. They’re also screening employees and asking all employees to follow Governor Whitmer’s stay-at-home order.
“We universally mask our employees and staff, specifically those that are facing the patients and further limit surgeries and those kinds of things. So this is just sort of a phased approach so we can step up our response as we are things change in the community,” said Chief Medical Officer Dr. Christine Nefcy.
Spectrum Health in Big Rapids has also started screening employees coming in to work and have new processes in places for cleaning and sanitizing protective equipment.
“We’ve also looked at who can work from home, so obviously our clinical staff, they need to be on sight, but we require the help of a lot of other roles that don’t need to be on site, so trying to make sure the people that don’t need to be in the building aren’t in the building,” said Chief Nursing Officer Caroline Ring.
And both hospitals say they’re watching the situation unfolding downstate closely.
“Even for my role I have two people that I’m teaching what I do so if I get sick, someone can step into my spot and continue the work that I do,” said Ring.
“Our staffing levels aren’t a concern, certainly we’re heading that from our hospitals downstate that that is becoming much more of one, right now we haven’t had that come up as an issue,” said Dr. Nefcy.
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