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HONOLULU (KHON2) — As the quantity of COVID-19 sufferers at hospitals goes down, some of the travel clinicians who arrived early on will start phasing out, however the nurses union cautions not to rush the method.
Hawaii reached its highest peak of coronavirus hospitalization in early September. That pattern is now manner down because the eight-week contract for FEMA nurses who arrived Aug. 16 expires soon.
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The Healthcare Association of Hawaii President and CEO Hilton Raethel mentioned some of the nurses are being requested to keep on.
“Fourteen of those have been asked to extend and are willing to extend,” Raethel mentioned. “Then the next week, the week of August 23, we had 201 staff come in. Of those, 97 have accepted an offer to stay on.”
Raethel mentioned greater than 720 travel employees arrived in Hawaii to help 19 medical services utilizing FEMA funding that expires on Nov. 13. Travel clinicians who stay on the job past that date will accomplish that on the expense of hospitals.
The Hawaii Nurses Association President Daniel Ross mentioned he has seen efforts from services to beef up staffing.
“Hopefully they’ve learned and they will keep enough travelers on,” Ross mentioned. “What I would like to see, eventually no travelers, and have enough of our core people hired up.”
But even with COVID traits decrease, hospitals stay full. Facilities are scheduling some of the non-urgent procedures that have been delayed throughout the summer time.
“We have a smaller number of COVID patients than we’ve had, still 180, but we have a significant number of other patients that are in our hospitals as well,” Raethel mentioned.
Now that acute care services are faring higher, Ross mentioned focus must be directed in the direction of expert nursing properties the place staffing continues to be a problem.
Ross mentioned, “They are still not getting the help there — that’s a disaster that is building.”
Raethel mentioned makes an attempt to safe extra funding for long-term care services haven’t been profitable.
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“We’ve really been trying, and we tried different avenues. We’ve tried a number of different approaches,” Raethel mentioned. “And we have not been successful. We have been trying this for a couple of months now.”
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