Officials with the Horizon Health Network say they are ready to face the second wave of the COVID-19 virus.
Horizon’s emergency management coordinator gave a presentation during Thursday’s board meeting.
Sharf Chowdhury said he does not expect another blanket closure of all hospital services like we saw earlier this year.
Chowdhury said when the virus first appeared in New Brunswick in March, officials did not have as great an understanding of how it works.
“Now, we understand a lot more and we’re able to better protect ourselves, our staff and our patients. Because we know how to better protect ourselves, we’re able to maintain our services and serve New Brunswickers,” Chowdhury told the board.
The province’s two regional health authorities, Horizon and Vitalite, cancelled all non-urgent surgeries in mid-March as they prepared for possible impacts of COVID-19.
The health authorities began gradually increasing services in May, once the province moved to the “orange” phase of recovery.
Chowdhury also detailed several lessons learned during the first wave, such as ensuring consistent screening of patients, visitors and employees.
“One of the things that was happening was sometimes we had inconsistent questions being asked, depending on which path you took to enter the facility. They seemed inconsistent to the screeners but they were designed with purpose. For visitors, we needed sometimes more information from them. For staff, they needed to be asked different questions,” he said.
Chowdhury said they asked for an oversight group to ensure questions were being asked in a consistent kind of way, which helped ensure familiarity for screeners asking the questions.
He said they have also been lobbying decision-makers to reconsider, where possible, when they are implementing new directives for health authorities.
“We have all seen recommendations coming on Fridays at 4 o’clock with an ask that they be implemented immediately. For some recommendations, absolutely, they need to be implemented immediately … but there are other things that need time to be understood. We need to clarify, we need to train our staff and be able to implement in a responsible way,” he said.
Another lesson currently being implemented, Chowdhury said, is ensuring private-practice physicians have ready access to personal protective equipment which does not have to be provided by the health authority.
