Message to our community
The COVID inpatient census at our hospital has doubled in the past week. Although the Omicron variant appears to cause less severe disease, it is much more contagious and can infect people who have been fully vaccinated. This has led to a greater increase in cases and exposures in the general public and in health care workers.
Even though most cases that occur in vaccinated people are very mild, under current guidelines health care workers must isolate for at least five days if they contract COVID. This has decreased the number of caregivers available to work in every hospital in western Washington, including Providence in Everett.
Unfortunately, this means that our limited number of inpatient beds and staff must be dedicated to patients who have true medical or surgical emergencies. To allow staff to care for these patients, and have beds available, we must postpone all non-emergency surgeries and procedures for the next two weeks. If your treatment or procedure needs to be rescheduled, your care team will reach out to you.
In addition, we have rolled back our visitor policy to no routine visitation on all patient care units, with some exceptions (exceptions include the Family Maternity Center, Pediatrics, NICU, and end-of-life visits).
If you need only to be tested for COVID and do not need emergency care, please do not come to the Emergency Department. Instead, utilize testing sites in the community.
These are extremely difficult decisions but are made out of necessity and to protect our patients, caregivers, and community. We will provide updates as they are available on this webpage. Please get vaccinated if you haven’t, get your booster if eligible, and continue to wear your mask. Thank you.
Providence Northwest Washington
About the Author
More Content by Providence News Team
