File photo by Patrick Ray
On Saturday, December 28, trustees from Kern Valley Healthcare District’s board notified the public that Kern Valley Hospital’s Emergency Room was closed for the evening. The hospital was unable to reopen the Emergency Room until the following day.
Chief Executive Officer for the hospital, Tim McGlew candidly spoke with the press Monday morning about the situation.
McGlew explained that the Emergency Room had become short staffed. The shortage hit the hospital both Friday and Saturday. However Friday the hospital was able to get through. It was not until Saturday the hospital was forced to close the Emergency Room.
“What happened was we had some staff call off work, in our emergency department. We were struggling to try and get some people to come in and replace them. And we weren’t able to do so, just because of sicknesses, illnesses that people had called in with. And so we had no choice but to shut it down.”
Hospital officials did not want people to show up to the Emergency Room when there was not enough staff to assist the public. So they had to close the Emergency Room McGlew said. “While that was going on we were actively out trying to come up with other means to back fill those positions.”
McGlew explained that the issue was the result of a combination of factors, including others being out of town for the holidays. “We were fine the rest of the weekend. That Sunday morning no problems, we were fully staffed, had everybody in. Sunday night same thing, everybody in, no problems,” McGlew stated.
According to McGlew such an occurrence was a rarity. “This is the first time in my career that we’ve ever had something like that happen. And I’ve been doing this for 45 years. This was a real rare circumstance.”
The CEO told the press that the Chief Nursing Officer, Mark Gordon had been seeking all Monday morning to ensure these things never happened again. The hospital was in contact with the California Department of Public Health and had worked with EMS throughout the weekend.
The plan for the future is for the hospital to beef staff up, adding more positions. “RNs, nurses are in short supply right now. The numbers have never really fully come back after COVID. We had a lot of people left the industry. Most of the hospitals are having problems finding nurses,” McGlew said.
The community has had an increase in flu cases during flu season, and these factors coming through, at the same time, forced their hand, according to McGlew. Flu season has added to the staff shortage issue. “We had five active flu cases, earlier that day, that came in through the door. So we’ve just instituted a policy where our ER nurses are going to be mandatory masking to make sure we keep our nurses as healthy as we can.”
Despite this setback, the hospital did have a physician available, all night Saturday, and a technician for crisis situations. The hospital also had two nurses on the Acute Department working. “When we’re going to close a department we had to notify the California Department of Public Health, just so they’re aware, and also the Kern County EMS because they direct where the ambulances go,” said McGlew.
The hospital was equipped to handle emergencies such as heart attacks and strokes, but they could not open an entire emergency room to the public. “We did the best we can. We were able in the event that someone did come in to take care of that.”
The hospital’s emergency services re-opened again at 7am Sunday morning. “We were back open again literally within the 12 hours. And we’ve been full staffed since then,” said McGlew. “Our plan is to stay ahead of that, and making sure this never happens again.”
Board chair Katheryn Elconin did not let her own cares take her away from keeping tabs on the Emergency Room closure problem. She said, “I had been in contact with Tim during that time when it was closed. Actually he let all the board members know. It came down to staffing. We did have an ER doctor on staff. We did have an ER tech still on staff.”
Elconin confirmed McGlew’s explanation that illnesses and the holidays rendered the ER short of enough other staff, such as RN’s to manage the whole emergency room needs.
“It was a tough situation for the hospital definitely. I know we did diversions. We let CMS know, and we let EMS know.” Elconin said, “The good news is before shift change we didn’t even have any patients at the ER. And to my knowledge none came in. The sad part was that we did have to close.”
Just as McGlew promised, Elconin also said that the hospital was planning to put into place more staff. “It can be totally devastating to our valley.” She said, “We have regulations that have to be met that we have to keep those nurses scheduled.”
Elconin said the hospital thought it was in the best interests of the community to do what it did, because they have to be properly staffed to meet those needs. The hospital was equipped to transport emergency patients, by copter and ambulance. “We’re still going to meet the needs of the community. We try to do the best that they can. But it’s definitely something that they’re looking at”
A nurse lives a minute away and would have come in any time, so she was on standby.
The same nurse had already been working her shift so she was off duty during that time. Doctors would have been able to provide assistance and divert patients by copter if necessary because an ambulance wouldn’t be fast enough.
