Bracing for a surge of COVID-19 patients, Morristown Medical Center is enlisting retired- and semi-retired doctors and nurses and asking the public for more N95 masks and air-filtering respirators for its staff.
In a wide-ranging interview on Friday, hospital President Trish O’Keefe added that MMC, like hospitals across the region, is scrambling to add ventilators for critically ill patients, and is discussing how to allocate those life-saving breathing machines if the need escalates.
O’Keefe acknowledged COVID-19 deaths at the hospital, and said some healthcare workers have tested positive, as anticipated in a pandemic.
Yet she is buoyed by an “amazing outpouring” of support from the community, which has donated everything from food and home-made protective masks to ventilators.
“I’m so proud to work and to live in Morris County, and in New Jersey and in Morristown,” said O’Keefe, who was moved when a neighbor offered her his N95 mask.
“People are wonderful, and that’s just one small example of how people are feeling about healthcare in our hospital right now,” said the Morristown resident.
More N95 masks and PAPRs–powered air-purifying respirators worn by workers in fire services and the petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries–are needed, she said.
“Bring them to the hospital at the front door. We have boxes in the front door,” O’Keefe said.
Maintaining social distance, she stressed, is the most vital public contribution to slow the spread of the coronavirus, which through Saturday had killed 140 New Jersey residents, including at least 11 in Morris County.
More than 2,200 people have fallen to the disease across the U.S.; nearly 31,000 have died around the world so far.
The latest death figures. Graphic courtesy of Coronaviral.fyi.
“If we flatten the curve, we extend our use of all of our important healthcare resources. So a lot depends on the community,” O’Keefe said.
“We need the community to focus on social distancing. It’s critical, using basic hand hygiene to decrease the spread of this terrible virus. So it all depends on everyone doing what they need to do in the community.”
A surge of COVID-19 patients could begin overwhelming New Jersey hospitals as early as the next few days, according to a Rutgers study.
A worst-case scenario, with only moderate social distancing by the public, could see a shortage of more than 190,000 beds statewide, the study warns. Strong social distancing still could result in a shortage of 60,000 beds.
Either way, hospitals in Morris County are anticipated to run out of beds before other counties.
The 750-bed Morristown Medical Center had between 70 and 80 COVID-19 patients on Friday, and was at 48 percent capacity overall, O’Keefe said.
All non-essential surgeries statewide were postponed as of 5 pm, per an order of Gov. Phil Murphy, and the hospital has been making room for a surge.
“Patients are also being treated at home, appropriately so, by our physicians,” O’Keefe said.
She did not have a breakdown of COVID-19 deaths at the hospital, but said they have followed the pattern seen elsewhere: Older patients, with underlying health conditions.
State health officials said last week that 80 percent of victims were over age 60, and they skewed more male than female. About half had other health issues.
VENTILATORS … AND WHAT-IFS
Ranked as New Jersey’s top hospital by Newsweek, Morristown Medical Center heads into the crisis with some advantages. As a Level II trauma center, it is designed to ramp up for emergencies. And it’s a part of a network, the six-hospital Atlantic Health System.
“The benefit of being a system is that we’re able to mobilize all of our resources, so if one site is in need, we move equipment, supplies and staff to that need,” O’Keefe.
She did not disclose the number of ventilators at the hospital.
“It’s a moving number, because we’re getting them in,” O’Keefe said. One provider is a respiratory school in Morris County. “They donated their ventilators, which are outstanding ventilators that we use now on our patients.”
On Saturday, Gov. Murphy ordered all healthcare facilities to provide daily updates on ventilators, bed capacity and personal protective equipment to the state Office of Emergency Management.
Some 2,300 ventilators are needed in New Jersey, according to state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said New York City hospitals need 30,000 machines.
When hospitals in Italy became overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases, doctors there had to make life-and-death decisions about which patients to hook up to scarce ventilators.
The state last week announced a bioethics panel to deal with the issue.
O’Keefe said her hospital’s critical care physicians, pulmonologists and ethics group have been meeting, and monitoring policies in New York.
“We’re planning for the future, and need to in every one of these scenarios. So it’s most important to be planning like we do in any type of disaster…we plan for every what-if,” she said.
Hospitals in Italy had to give crash courses in respiratory treatment to doctors from other specialties.
“We are not to that point,” O’Keefe said. “But what we are doing right now is inventorying our capacity in our community.
“And what I mean by that is that we’re reaching out to our key physicians, our physicians who have either closed their practices or decreased their practices. If they have their skill set, particularly from a hospital medicine, critical care medicine standpoint, they are volunteering, and they are signing up.”
Every hospital department has volunteers, O’Keefe said. And they’re not just doctors.
“Our nurses are coming back who have retired recently. They’re coming back into our emergency department, other areas of the hospital. We’re redeploying our staff…as our census has decreased. We do have a wonderful clinical skill in all of our nurses, so we’re redeploying them to the areas of need,” said O’Keefe, who is a registered nurse.
Keeping them healthy is crucial.
Staff members check their temperatures when they come to work, and they are reminded to keep hydrating, eat properly, and stay focused on their own wellness so they can care for patients, O’Keefe said.
But as the coronavirus spreads, “we know we have team members who are positive” with the infection, she said.
A “very small number” of hospital employees have been referred to quarantine, said spokesperson Karen Zatorski.
A drive-through test facility, opened at Atlantic Health’s Morris Township headquarters on March 18, 2020, now is testing healthcare workers exclusively, said Zatorski.
Morris County residents with a doctor’s prescription can get tested starting this Monday, March 30, at the County College of Morris in Randolph. Atlantic Health is partnering with the Morris County Office of Emergency Management on this drive-through center.
MORE COVERAGE OF THE CORONAVIRUS
