NC, hospitals seek volunteers and retirees to help with surge in COVID-19 patients
Along with potential shortages of equipment and hospital beds, those planning for the coronavirus outbreak in North Carolina are also worried about having enough doctors, nurses and other health care workers to treat people with COVID-19.
The state is asking qualified medical volunteers to pitch in and has heard from nearly 1,900, including retired doctors and nurses, according to Mike Sprayberry, director of the state Department of Emergency Management. About 700 of them have been vetted and are ready to be sent to hospitals across the state if needed, Sprayberry said.
Meanwhile, hospitals have been recruiting staff from within their ranks who can help care for coronavirus patients. These include doctors, nurses and others who are no longer busy because non-urgent surgeries and other procedures have been postponed during the outbreak.
Dr. Chris DeRienzo, chief medical officer for the WakeMed health system, said he’s had numerous WakeMed employees volunteer for coronavirus duty.
“It has warmed my heart to have folks send me emails saying, ‘When people start needing it, you call me, and I will be there,’” DeRienzo said.
As of Wednesday morning, 204 people with COVID-19 were hospitalized in the state, according to the Department of Health and Human Services That’s up from 50 last Friday, and state and hospital officials expect the number will climb significantly in the weeks ahead.
Much of the public’s attention on preparations for coronavirus in North Carolina has focused on equipment and hospital beds. The state Department of Health and Human Services now publishes a daily update of the number of available inpatient and intensive care unit hospital beds in the state, as well as the number of ventilators, the machines that get oxygen into the lungs of people with critical respiratory illnesses like COVID-19.
But hospital administrators say the defining factor in their ability to care for sick patients may be whether they have enough qualified and healthy staff to tend to them.
“There’s a facility footprint and then there’s a human resource footprint, and trying to align those is tricky,” said Dr. Joseph Rogers, the chief medical officer for the Duke University Health System. “We can repurpose a lot of space. We can’t go out and hire a 1,000 new nurses or respiratory therapists or physicians.”
Linda Butler, the chief medical officer at UNC Rex Hospital in Raleigh, said she feels good about the hospital’s supply of ventilators and worries more about having enough qualified nurses and therapists to run them.
“You need nurses who can take care of that level of patient,” Butler said. “And if nurses are getting sick or there’s a nursing shortage anyway, because this is a high-growth area, we are being creative with staffing plans.”
That includes recruiting employees who may now work in administration but still have their medical licenses or calling on people who have recently retired.
One retired doctor who got that call is Dr. Jeffrey Crane, an oncologist who has been easing into retirement, filling in occasionally when doctors at his old practice need him. Crane says he would likely be asked to help care for cancer patients at Rex, freeing up others to handle COVID-19. But if the surge in respiratory patients is severe, he said, “probably a number of physicians like me will discard their specialties and just take care of people.”
“This is what I do. I think I do it well,” Crane said. “It’s my service, what I owe the community, what I can give the community. And that’s good for me, when I can give.”
Crane has taken part in several web meetings to get ready for his possible duty. He says his biggest concern, should he be called upon, is his limited knowledge of the hospital’s electronic records system.
“I fear I’ll make a mistake that will cause me to fall behind,” he said.
Placing volunteers where they’re needed and able
Assessing the skills and credentials of volunteers is part of what hospitals must do before putting them to work. DeRienzo, the WakeMed medical officer, is a pediatrician and neonatologist with lots of experience with very young children, an age group that rarely gets sick from coronavirus.
“I know how to run a baby ventilator, but it’s been a long time since I’ve run an adult one,” he said. “We have to look at how would someone like me be able to work under supervision.”
Some medical volunteers will need some quick training. UNC Chapel Hill said Thursday it would waive tuition for an accelerated version of an online refresher course for registered nurses — including those whose licenses have lapsed — who want to return to the field to help battle COVID-19.
Sprayberry said none of the people who have answered the state’s call to volunteer have been put to work yet. He said the volunteers would be sent to hospitals and other health care centers either to fill in for people who are sick or to help if hospitals have to increase their capacity with new beds.
Dr. Mandy Cohen, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said the state would try to keep volunteers working close to home, but that may not be possible.
“We’re going to have to be pretty flexible,” Cohen said at a press conference Wednesday. “We’re going to want to move folks where they’re most needed.”
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This story was originally published April 2, 2020 at 9:18 AM.
