we already have quite a few staff members here who have been exposed that are not being allowed to quarantine unless they exhibit symptoms. it puts too much of a hardship on the current staffing situation because we don't have enough staff. their only other alternative is to close the doors and nobody gets treated. they just stay home and die. this situation is a lot more dire than people realize. most hospitals work with the bare bones of staffing. just enough to accommodate. so let's just say for example you have 20 ppl staffed who are all working different positions. for example i know about 8 different positions here. lets say 5 go down for the count with no replacements. and only 5 know how to do more than one position. that leaves 10 who can only do 1 position. there's no wiggle room there.
when you start losing staff then you have to forego certain services in order to stay a functioning dept. for many months during the beginning we had 2 people working at night instead of 3 and half the services removed from the daily routine. limited menu. in the medical dept that means something different and it's a whole different ball game there. no one wants to be cared for by someone with covid. anymore than we want to work alongside someone with covid. but it's either that or shut down and just let people die in the parking lot.
