Deaconess beckons non-coronavirus patients: It's safe, they say

Thomas B. Langhorne
Evansville Courier & Press

NEWBURGH, Ind. — A man with a broken back delayed coming to Deaconess Hospital for three weeks, suffering in pain because he was too scared to go.

The cringe-worthy anecdote, offered by a registered nurse Wednesday, illustrated in vivid detail a message Deaconess Health System higher-ups pounded home every chance they got during a guided tour for local reporters Wednesday afternoon.

The message: People are skipping critically needed medical care because they fear they will be exposed to COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, if they come to the hospital. But they can come, and safely.

"We're well-prepared to take care of anyone who would come to us with an acute emergency," Dr. Gina Huhnke told reporters.

COVID-19 patients? There were only seven of them Wednesday between Deaconess Gateway and Deaconess Midtown Hospital in Evansville, health system officials said.

"We've got plenty of personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect ourselves and to protect our patients, and our ventilator usage currently today is around 35 percent — so we have a lot of capacity left," said Huhnke, whose titles at Deaconess include medical director of emergency services and COVID incident command section chief.

Negative airflow

Wednesday was about assuaging the fears of prospective patients spooked by coronavirus — "even for things that may seem elective," Deaconess Health System President Dr. James Porter said. Deaconess announced this week it will resume some elective procedures and surgeries.

Deaconess took reporters through a special entrance to the doors of one of its COVID-19 units, where Porter delivered a potent pitch.

"There's been a recognition all along that delaying health care for people, even things that may seem elective, can certainly start to have an impact on people's health and well-being," he said.

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The reality that the feared surge of coronavirus patients isn't happening so far and the health system's adequate PPE and ventilator supply "have caused people to have a new degree of comfort with saying, 'OK, it's now safe and appropriate for us to start doing some of those things that we had been putting off,'" Porter said.

Porter also stressed the presence of negative airflow rooms in the emergency departments of both local Deaconess hospitals. It means, he said, that the risk of contracting COVID-19 from a patient housed in an emergency department room is virtually nil.

In a Facebook Live appearance with Huhnke last week, the Deaconess Health System president broke it down to the individual patient's risk level.

"We have an entire unit set up with negative airflow, so that the air’s being pulled out that unit and then vented outside," Porter said.

"So even if you were walking by in a hallway and you went by that COVID-19 unit, there’s no risk of germs coming out of the unit because they’re being pulled out through the ventilation system."

If you visit, you have to...

The journalists at Gateway Wednesday saw — and experienced — what Deaconess called stringent security and safety practices. Among them:

  • Patients and visitors must wear masks covering their mouths and noses.  Anyone who doesn't bring his own mask will be given a fabric mask, and it has to be returned.
  • Patients and visitors are greeted by staffers wearing PPE and are asked screening questions about possible symptoms and their exposure to others and travel history.  Their forehead temperatures are taken.
  • If cleared, they are given colored dot stickers — different ones for different days —bearing the date and their destination.
  • If a patient doesn't clear all the screening criteria, he is given a procedure mask. Patients are routed or re-routed, depending on the care needed. If a visitor doesn't clear the criteria, he doesn't visit.
  • There are "special processes" for customers of the Deaconess Family Pharmacy and visitors involved in end-of-life situations.

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A guarantee?

On Facebook Live last week, Huhnke and Porter laid out an entire series of steps Deaconess is taking to protect staff and patients.

Starting with the basics. Porter pointed to the requirement that everyone at Deaconess wear a mask.

"So really, our hospital is no less safe than any other place in the community where you might encounter other people," he said.

Deaconess takes pains not to co-mingle the populations of COVID-19 patients and suspected patients with patients who show up with problems like strokes, traumatic illness and chest pain, Porter and Huhnke said. Employees who treat COVID patients don't cross over to other patients.

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"So, the moral of the story is, don’t lose heart muscle, don’t lose brain — don’t suffer something that’s causing you pain or potentially die, over fear for coming and receiving services, because it’s very safe to come and receive those services," Porter said.

Huhnke went even further, virtually guaranteeing a non-COVID patient's safety. She said all the precautions and the hospital system's own foresight have virtually eliminated any chance of contracting COVID at Deaconess

"You have more chance of dying of a heart attack at home if you’re having chest pain than you do of catching COVID in a hospital," she said.

"Much more."