COVID-19 GGH Update May 13
How to give feedback
- Speak to your manager or director
- Ask your leader to bring forward an idea or concern to the COVID-19 Incident Management Team
- covidquestions@gghorg.ca
- What’s on your mind? (only works if you’re within the hospital)
Click to the section you want to read
Action/must read (0)
What’s New? (3)
Resources and Supplies (1)
Staff Support (1)
Other (1)
Starting with the positive…
Reporting on COVID-19 activity in staff and patients
| Total number of staff tested to date | 273 |
| Total number of staff with a negative test result to date | 234 |
| Current number of staff with a positive test | 1 |
| Number of staff results pending | 10 |
| Number of staff who tested positive and are now recovered | 28 |
| Total number of staff with a positive test result to date | 29 |
| Number of current in-patients who have tested positive | 7 |
Action/Must read
What’s new?
Procedure masks will not be reprocessed
Earlier this week, Ontario Health notified hospitals they would no longer be required to save used procedure masks for possible future reprocessing.
Scrubs disruption and an evolving distribution process
Yesterday we had a disruption in our supply chain that did not allow us to provide scrubs to all staff who requested them. In fact, we did not have enough to operate our OR’s/MDR safely. Staff arriving mid-morning only had XXS or XXX sizes available to them.
Although more linen did arrive, in order to have hospital-issued scrubs available for staff working in environments that require them, GGH has implemented measures to secure and limit the distribution of scrubs across the organization. We recognize that for some staff this is a disruption to regular work routines. We appreciate your support and the patience.
Moving ahead as we plan to start to increase our hospital activity, GGH will need to further tighten up our distribution. As we work though some of the details we are asking staff to reflect on the following:
- Priority for sizing and offering hospital-issued scrubs will be given to staff who work in environments that require hospital-issued linen such as the OR/FBU OR, MDRD and staff entering these areas
- COVID-19 is not an indication for the wearing of scrubs and is not part of PPE for droplet contact precautions. Scrubs do not offer any additional level of protection against COVID-19
- If you are concerned about contamination on your clothes, simply bring work attire to wear while on shift then change back into your street clothes before you leave. Personally owned uniforms or work wear can be laundered as normal at home
- Some staff over the years have accessed hospital-owned scrubs as preferred work wear. Directors, Managers and Supervisors will be working with staff in these areas to transition to alternate work wear in order to conserve hospital-laundered scrubs
- Over the next few weeks there will be further restrictions on who can access scrubs will be coming. The information will be detailed in a temporary policy
- All staff who work outside of the sterile environments are encouraged to bring work-appropriate attire to work in case scrubs are not available
- Work uniforms are available for purchase through the following GGH specific promotions:
- DirectSave – 25 % off www.clothingprograms.com/ggh
- VTR Uniforms: Will provide all employees of GGH, with proof of employment, a discount on any REGULAR priced items, equal to the tax on that purchase. Please contact franco@vtruniforms.ca, (519) 827-5889
- Uniforms are also available for purchase in store at Walmart & Giant Tiger
Scrubs sign out is changing to better meet staff sizing needs!
Starting May 14, scrub sign out for all staff from 0600-2030 is available at the main screening station. After hours, a small supply of scrubs will be available at the ED screening station for on call staff or staff starting at off peak times.
Resources and Supplies
Procedure masks update
GGH currently has two manufacturers of procedure masks that have been used over several weeks at GGH, Halyard and Primagard. Both of these masks are consistent with infection control guidelines, and are appropriate for healthcare workers to use where procedure masks are required.
Halyard masks are our current vendor. At this time, we are able to securing limited stock from them. Primagard masks are from our pandemic stockpile here at GGH. GGH’s Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) stockpile is kept in a secured area, where it is temperature controlled and meets all appropriate measures required for proper storing of PPE.
Over the last couple days, a few staff from varying departments have reported procedure masks that have ripped while being donned. This was looked into immediately. We believe there may be a quality issues with a limited number of mask that were recently received. The masks that are felt to have been affected have been removed from clinical areas. The manufacturer has been contacted and a quality review of these masks is underway.
Credit goes to the staff for quickly reporting this issue and the rapid response to remove what may be a defective lot. As always, safety is paramount and we will always err on the side of caution when it comes to safety.
In the event you find a mask that has a fault such as ripping, please keep the mask for pick-up and report it to your director. Directors can then report it to Materials Management so further investigation into quality issue can be reviewed.
Staff Support
COVID-19 Staff Feedback Survey – preliminary results
Thanks so much to the 357 staff that completed our survey. It was important for us to get feedback from you about what is working well right now with respect to our communication through this pandemic and to gather your ideas on how we can improve.
Overall, the survey shows that many of our current processes are working well. We also received a number of comments and ideas for improvement which will be reviewed over the coming weeks. More information will be shared as it becomes available. In the meantime, we are pleased to share the initial results of the survey responses here.
If you have any other questions or concerns, please share them with your supervisor or email covidquestions@gghorg.ca.
Other
Yesterday’s gift card winner list erroneously included staff who were paid the last pay period but not actually working. (Perhaps they were on mat leave).
The intent of the cards is to support those who are in the building at this time. Those names were removed and the gift card was given to someone in the same department chosen at random. This will get sorted out for the next draw (next week! 🙂 )