St. Charles Hospital, 200 Belle Terre Road, Port Jefferson will host a blood drive on Wednesday, March 17 from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Wisdom Conference Center. Every donation helps. To register, call 800-933-2566. For more information, call Tina at 631-474-6251.
Doug Jansson finally got to spend Christmas with his family — nearly two months after the holiday.
On Dec. 12, the 42-year-old pastor was brought into Stony Brook University Hospital after he and the rest of his family contracted COVID-19 in late November. He was intubated in the Intensive Care Unit on Christmas Eve, and placed on life support where it was thought he wasn’t going to make it.
“I think I remember him being sick only a handful of times in the 20 years we’ve been married,” his wife, Kelly, said back in January. “When we got COVID, he was worried about me — nobody was worried about him getting hit this hard.”
But now, the lead pastor of Living World Church in Hauppauge is back home in Smithtown after 63 days.
On Feb. 12, the father of three was wheeled out of St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson, where he was undergoing rehabilitation for nine days, since being discharged from Stony Brook on Feb. 3. Jansson said he was able to get up and walk out because of prayer.
Early on in the pandemic, Jansson organized prayer parades with his church, often visiting local hospitals to support essential workers and victims of the virus.
But then he became ill, himself. After being in the ICU for not even two days, he began complaining of severe pain. A CT scan revealed a pleural effusion (fluid in the chest), a secondary pneumonia, pleurisy and a small pneumothorax (air in the chest). His right lung collapsed.
That’s when his wife knew she had to share his story. Kelly logged into his Facebook account and began updating his friends, family and followers of his progress. Some days were better than others, but one thing she kept asking of everyone was to keep praying.
Kelly said she began receiving messages from people all over the world, telling her they were keeping Doug in their thoughts and prayers. Now he’s finally home.
Feb. 12 was always a special day for the couple, Kelly said outside St. Charles Hospital the day of his release. Twenty-one years ago, on the same date, he proposed to her.
And to celebrate his release, nearly 100 people gathered outside with balloons, signs and streamers to cheer the pastor on as he got in his car, ready to go home.
“I’m thankful that we’re here and so grateful,” Doug said before he addressed the crowd outside. “I know that God has set it up to be just a miracle and something that we can’t express that we know we don’t deserve. But he’s giving, so we’re really thankful.”
When asked how this whole experience made him feel, his voice broke.
“I would say two words keep coming to mind when people ask me that,” he said. “One is painful. It’s been very difficult, fighting through this and being away from my family. But the other word is, in a weird way beautiful, because I’ve gotten to see doctors and nurses and health care people in a different light and really get to know them.”
He said the essential workers have been there for him and his family.
“I also feel like God’s put me through this to try to be there for them, to encourage him, pray for and bless them,” he added. “I know that, for whatever reason, this story has impacted people and, you know, that makes going through it worth it because I know people are being drawn to Jesus.”
Nearly a week home, one of his first requests, he said, was to get a slice of pizza from Ciro’s in Smithtown. And on his way home, the pizzeria donated two large pies to the family to celebrate his homecoming.
The family was finally able to celebrate Christmas, and their dog, Chewy, was so happy to see his dad again.
“He’s doing really well,” Kelly said on Feb. 15 in a phone interview. “He’s working so hard on getting stronger. There’s still a way to go, but we will help him get there.”
And Doug said his couldn’t have done it without the support from his family, church, faith and the prayers from strangers.
“I am so grateful to God to be home with my family after all this time,” he said. “We are enjoying every second of it.”
They lost patients, sleep and time with their families and yet, through some of the most difficult conditions in over a century, they persevered, brought together by the shared goal of saving lives threatened by the pandemic.
The Times Beacon Record Newspapers is pleased to honor the health care workers who put themselves in harm’s way to offer comfort, cures and solutions for COVID-19.
State Sen. Jim Gaughran (D-Northport) described health care workers as “heroes beyond belief.” He added, “There are folks who have gotten sick and died, simply because they were just doing their jobs.”
Unusual Requests
Indeed, in some cases, these health care workers took on tasks that aren’t typically a part of their job description or training.
Take Kristen Thomas, a registered nurse at Mather Hospital in Port Jefferson. A priest came up to her in the halls of the hospital to ask for an unusual favor. A person had died and the family, who couldn’t be by his side, asked for last rites. The priest knew he couldn’t enter the room.
He asked, “Would you mind taking holy water and anointing the patient?”
She approached the patient, made the sign of the cross and prayed, as the priest stood outside the door.
“A moment like that, you never really plan to do that,” Thomas said. “We tried to give the family a little bit of closure. They didn’t get to attend the normal [rituals].”
For the community and health care workers, normal took on new meaning, especially in the first few months of the pandemic, when Suffolk County became an epicenter of the virus.
With family unable to sit by the bedside, nurses often stepped up, holding up iPad and phones so the family could spend time together virtually.
Marilin Dilone, Emergency Department nurse at Stony Brook University Hospital, called the young family of one of her patients.
His wife “put the baby on the phone — the baby looked like he was maybe 10 months old. The baby was making noises. I swear [the patient] opened his eyes. The wife is crying. Such a moment, we take for granted. He could hear her say, ‘I love you.’ To be able to provide that was very humbling for me.”
Like Dilone and so many other nurses, Robert Collins, a nurse at Mather Hospital ,shared how he held an iPad up to patients whose conditions were deteriorating so they could say goodbye to their families.
He had to stay in the room because some of the patients couldn’t hold the iPad.
“You do that once or twice, it kind of sticks with you,” Collins said.
Deep Connections
The connections the medical staff made to the families of patients extended well beyond the typical interactions.
“We had patients for an extended period of time,” said Patricia Coffey, nurse manager of the Critical Care Unit at Huntington Hospital.
Coffey, who spent 11 weeks actively caring for patients as her managerial duties “went to the wayside,” said the staff talked to families for extended periods of time. She spoke with some families daily, spending as much as two-and-a-half hours each day on the phone.
The nurses felt like members of the family because the normal support system couldn’t provide bedside support.
“You were channeling the family to the patient,” Coffey said. The nurses were “rooting so hard” for the patients.
When one of those patients who was in the hospital died after a long battle, she said it was “unbelievably heartbreaking — you felt like one of your own family members had died.”
She still keeps in touch with family members.
Coffey said one of her neighbors was admitted to the hospital with COVID and was on her floor. Coffey’s children and her neighbor’s children grew up together and their daughters were friends.
She not only spoke with his wife every day during her 60-hour weeks, but she also called her coworkers over the weekend to ask how he was doing.
The conversations with the neighbor’s wife were “a little hard. I wanted to be honest with her. He was very critical. At the same time, I was trying to be hopeful. It was a hard balance.”
Coffey said he was “one of the lucky ones who survived.”
Dilone of SBUH described how the work was more physically demanding.
She would “try not to ask for people” as she didn’t want to expose others if it wasn’t necessary. “You are taking care of patients more by yourself, turning them and doing chest PT [physiotherapy] — it was physically more demanding,” Dilone said.
Dark Moments
Watching patients who died took its toll, even on people who have been in the medical profession for decades.
MaryJane Finnegan, chief nursing officer at St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center in Smithtown, described the unusually high number of people dying from the virus. The hospital was running out of space for the dead. The morgue was filled and an additional refrigeration truck outside also filled quickly.
“One day, eight people died — usually in a week, you can have eight people die, but not eight in a day,” Finnegan said.
Nikki Fiore-Lopez, chief nursing officer at St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson said a nurse was present for the death of her mentor. Watching her die was “one of the darkest moments” for the nurse, Fiore-Lopez said.
Many medical professionals encouraged their patients to fight through the worst of the virus.
Stony Brook’s Dilone stayed with a patient whose blood oxygen level kept dropping. She wouldn’t let him fall asleep because she was worried he’d get intubated. She reminded him of his family and that he needed to help himself.
“I felt like Nurse Ratched,” Dilone said, referring to the dreaded nurse from the movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
Dilone spent hours with this patient. Later, a doctor told her keeping the man awake prevented him from getting intubated.
Unexpected Challenges
With a virus no one had battled before, health care workers had to be flexible, learning about everything from new protocols for admitting patients to the latest and best treatments.
The staff had to confront the “speed with which everything changed,” said Dr. Eric Morley, associate professor and clinical director in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Stony Brook University’s Renaissance School of Medicine. “Every day, there were new protocols, new ways to deal with things.”
Hospitals had to create a forward triage system to deal with the flood of COVID patients amid all the other potential emergencies hospitals routinely have.
These efforts required hundreds of employees to “get on the same people to sort people out,” Morley said. Training staff to manage the flow of patients required constant communication.
Even some of the smaller elements of managing the crisis took Morley’s time, such as getting new traffic signs to direct people to an alternate site.
Hospital managers were continually confronted with numerous unexpected challenges.
Ken Roberts, president of Mather Hospital, said the hospital had to ensure the PPE was hospital grade and not counterfeit.
“There were a lot of suspicious and unscrupulous suppliers when supply and demand was unbalanced, and everyone was in crisis,” he explained in an email.
Health care workers tapped into their personal skills to connect with patients.
Angel Figueroa, a registered respiratory therapist at SBUH who grew up in New York City and learned Spanish thanks to his Puerto Rican heritage, walked into some rooms and spoke Spanish to patients.
When he greeted patients in Spanish, “I would see their eyes open up [and think], ‘Somebody understands me.’”
They would ask him numerous questions, particularly because the medical information came at them so quickly.
Mather’s Collins described how the routine changed so dramatically the moment he arrived at work.
“Rapid response bells were going off as soon as you walked in,” he said. “You didn’t take your coat off” before patients needed attention. “People were not doing well. That was happening more frequently than before. That was an adjustment.”
On the other side of the struggle, health care workers felt a tremendous sense of relief when patients continued their recoveries at home.
“When people were discharged, the staff was thrilled,” St. Catherine’s Finnegan said. “We’d play the [Beatles] song, ‘Here Comes the Sun.’ A lot of hospitals did that. People would gather as many as possible to wish the person well as they were wheeled out.”
Teamwork
Through the difficulties, though, Morley appreciated the support from the community and the families, along with the teamwork and camaraderie from so many departments and staff that all pulled together.
Roberts expressed similar sentiments.
“I was extremely pleased at the teamwork displayed by all hospital staff during the height of the pandemic,” he said.
The Mather president was also grateful for the letters, cards, donated meals, handmade masks and donated PPE.
“The local communities we serve gave us and continue to give us tremendous support and encouragement,” Roberts said. “That has meant so much to the staff to know that the community was supporting them and recognizing their efforts.”
Coffey, from Huntington Hospital, was impressed with how, even amid such extraordinary and challenging times, numerous groups collaborated.
“In many ways there were positive things — the community, the team, everyone working together,” she said. “Parts of it were so uplifting. As hard and as difficult and sad and heart wrenching [as it was], so many other parts, you just saw such humanity. It was amazing.”
Lasting Thoughts
Finnegan said the staff was incredibly appreciative of all the food local restaurants donated.
In fact, some of them joke that they gained the “COVID-19,” referring to the weight they put on while they were working numerous shifts and benefiting from all the donated food.
Morley “rediscovered” Twinkies during COVID in the break room. He has since been able to lose the weight the snack cakes added.
While gyms were closed, Collins relieved stress by buying a 400-pound tractor-trailer tire that he flipped up and down along his driveway. He also took a sledgehammer and “beat on it.”
The exertion would make him tired enough that the stress would dissipate for the day.
Ultimately, what made an ever-expanding job — that affected so many aspects of health care workers’ personal and professional lives — manageable was the shared sense of purpose and the inspiration people drew from each other.
“The fact that the staff was out there doing it” helped give her energy, St. Charles’ Fiore-Lopez said. “We had patients to care for, we had shifts. We had days and weeks and months to get through. They put one foot in front of the other and I needed to do the same.”
Morley appreciated the way the Stony Brook staff pulled together during an intense and challenging time.
“Although it was grueling, it was a special thing to go through with that group of people,” he said.
Catholic Health Service’s (CHS) St. Charles Hospital Stephen B. Gold Dental Clinic in Port Jefferson recently hosted its 5th annual Give Veterans a Smile Day. The event provides men and women who have served our country in the armed forces with quality dental care free of charge.
This year’s event was dedicated to Mark Cherches, DDS, who passed away on September 18th. A military veteran, Dr. Cherches served as director of the St. Charles Dental Residency Program for 40 years and was instrumental in founding Give Veterans a Smile Day.
“It is humbling and very uplifting to help these men and women who have done so much to protect our freedom,” said St. Charles Department of Dentistry Director Keri Logan, DMD. “Many of our military veterans no longer have dental insurance. A veteran must be 100% service-disabled to qualify for dental care from the Veterans Administration.”
This year’s November 4th event provided service members numerous much-needed dental procedures, including exams, oral cancer screenings, cleanings, extractions and fillings. Also, free flu shots were provided.
Beginning in 2021, the Give Veterans a Smile Day will be held twice a year thanks to a grant from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation.
For information about the Stephen B. Gold Dental Clinic, please call (631) 474-6332.
In a show of appreciation for its service to the community during the COVID19 pandemic, the Radio Central Amateur Radio Club (RCARC) recently presented a $1,000 donation to St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson.
“We are grateful for the tireless hours put in by not only St. Charles doctors and nurses, but also by all of the medical support staff, facility personnel, security officers and the multitude of people needed to keep the hospital running smoothly,” said Radio Central’s president, Neil Heft. He explained that the group “wanted to do something more than just putting up a thank you sign, so we took up a collection from our forty members who live in the community.”
In a brief ceremony on October 16th, Heft accompanied by RCARC vice-president Richie Fisher and board member Frank Mazovec presented the donation to Lisa Mulvey, Executive Director of the St. Charles Hospital Foundation, and Marilyn Fabbricante, St. Charles Hospital’s Director of Public and Community Relations.
# # #
The Radio Central Amateur Radio Club (RCARC) was formed in 1977 by a group of Amateur Radio operators to commemorate the enormous contributions to communications made by RCA’s Radio Central transmitting facility established in Rocky Point, NY. In 1921 as the world’s largest, most powerful transmitting facility, sending messages to land stations and ships at sea around the globe. More information on RCARC can be found at: www.rcarc.org. Information about Amateur Radio can be found at: www.arrl.org
The Thanksgiving COVID-19 numbers are here and they are skyrocketing.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone (D) was joined by health and emergency response officials in a media call Dec. 3 to brief the public on the increase in positive coronavirus tests since the holiday last week.
“We are expecting to see more than 1,100 positive cases in Suffolk County, with a positivity rate of about 6%,” he said. “We have not seen a number of 1,000 cases a day since last April.”
To put it in perspective, Bellone said, Suffolk County was averaging below 200 new cases per day last month. The number has now jumped to nearly 500 positive cases on average per day.
The spike in hospitalizations is also drastic, jumping to 57%. Bellone said that 287 people have been hospitalized — an increase of 21 people. He said 50 of those people are in ICUs.
“That is the highest number since the end of May,” he said. “If we continue with this current pace by Christmas, we’ll have over 1,000 people in the hospitals with COVID-19.”
Bellone noted that at Suffolk County’s peak in the spring, when the region was the epicenter of the virus, there were 1,658 hospitalizations.
Kenneth Kaushansky, Dean of the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, said the number of COVID patients or suspected COVID patients was up to 85.
“Every day for the last week or so, we’ve seen 10 more patients in our hospital,” Kaushansky said on a conference call about vaccinations on Thursday. “It’s coming back at us.”
Kaushansky urged residents to stay away from parties, wash their hands, and to continue wearing masks.
Marilin Dilone, an Emergency Department Nurse at Stony Brook, said the second wave is “slowly happening. We’re seeing it again.”
She anticipates a smooth transition if the numbers continue to rise.
“We know what to expect,” Dilone said.
Dr. Eric Morley, Associate Professor and Clinical Director of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Stony Brook, described the staff as “battle tested.”
The hospital planned to open the forward triage unit, which the hospital used to separate suspected COVID patients during the first wave of the virus, next week.
On Monday, Mather Hospital President Kenneth Roberts said the hospital was at 64 percent occupancy, so it is “nowhere near capacity.” The hospital also has surge plans in place so that it can accommodate many more than 248 patients.
Robert Collins, a nurse at Mather for the last seven years, said the staff has learned from the difficult experiences through the spring.
“The benefit this go-round is that we’ve done it once,” Collins said. “We’re more familiar with treating it.”
St. Catherine Hospital has 30 COVID positive patients, which is 15% of their inpatient volume, while St. Charles has 11 COVID patients, which is 6.5% of the inpatient volume. Mather is still at 64% occupancy, which is the figure from earlier this week.
“The second wave and the post-Thanksgiving surge we talked about, we warned about, is here,” he said. “Luckily, we’ve taken a proactive approach.”
But Bellone said that although maintaining social distancing and wearing a mask outside is essential to staying safe, small gatherings are becoming the new super spreader.
“Now we know that small gatherings among families and friends have the highest transmission rate of all the events that we’ve seen,” he said. “So I cannot stress enough the concern about small indoor gatherings, where individuals and almost naturally let their guard down a little bit.”
Bellone said that Long Islanders must remain vigilant throughout the upcoming holiday season, while a vaccine is on the horizon.
“It is our actions over the next 30-plus days, that will be critical to our continued recovery,” he said. “That will be key to making sure that we keep our kids in school, keep our schools open, and keep our businesses open.”
He added that two new community-testing sites were launched in Huntington and Patchogue. So far, 349 people have been tested at the Huntington site.
Additional reporting from Daniel Dunaief
Local hospitals are in need of blood, and they are joining forces with New York Blood Center to get the word out that a donation could save a life.
According to Andrea Cefarelli, senior executive director at New York Blood Center, because of the current pandemic, there is a huge shortage across the country with no sign of any more supplies incoming.
“This is a chronic deficit in blood donations so we’re trying to raise awareness,” she said.
Cefarelli explained that before the pandemic, 75% of blood donations came from the community.
“We came to you in your place of work, place of worship and schools,” she said. “It was super easy to donate blood.”
According to its Facebook page, NYBC provides lifesaving blood products and services to nearly 200 hospitals in New York, New Jersey, Long Island, the Hudson Valley, and parts of Connecticut and Pennsylvania.
But because of COVID-19, people aren’t going out to donate, especially since blood drives at schools, colleges, offices and other community groups have been canceled.
“Post-pandemic we’re running far fewer community blood drives and so it’s not quite as convenient,” Cefarelli said. “We have a deficit of 8,000 donations per month.”
According to NYBC, New York’s health care system requires 1,500 donations each day to treat patients ranging from trauma victims to newborns to cancer patients. The lack of blood donations is “particularly dangerous given the looming uncertainty surrounding the pandemic’s trajectory over the course of this winter,” she said.
Pre-pandemic, NYBC would host 550 community blood drives every month, but it is currently hosting just 280 blood drives per month.
To make up for lost blood, NYBC has teamed up with local and regional hospitals including Northwell Health and Catholic Health Services of Long Island to spread the word and ask people to donate.
“The lack of blood donations has caused shortages of blood types to be available in our blood bank which provides lifesaving blood to all the patients we serve within the community,” said Jon Zenker, the administrative director of Huntington Hospital’s laboratory. “We urge all members of the community who are able to donate blood to help us overcome this critical shortage so that we can continue to serve our patients and provide them with the highest quality of care.”
Greg Slater, a spokesperson with Catholic Health Services, said they have taken extra safety precautions to make people feel comfortable during COVID times.
“It takes a little bit of time to do, but it can be a lifesaving thing for someone else,” he said.
Cefarelli said the lack of first-time donors is also down because of the lack of blood drives in school. She is encouraging young people to lend a helping hand.
“If you bring a son or daughter who’s a first-time donor, who doesn’t have that school experience, we’re welcoming that,” she said. “Making it a fun and safe experience is super important to us.”
She’s also reminding people that blood drives are safe and can be hosted in a socially distanced fashion.
“We have churches, businesses and even some schools realizing that we can host a blood drive that is safe and socially distant,” she said. “We want other organizations to consider hosting a drive.”
Right now, donors can make an appointment online at any NYBC blood collection center. Upon arrival, their temperatures are checked, and masks are required.
Stony Brook University Hospital is also accepting blood donations at their own personal blood bank. According to Linda Pugliese, blood bank donor recruiter at the hospital, every day (except for Sunday) is a blood drive there.
“All of the whole blood and platelets that are donated in the hospital blood bank, stay at the hospital, and help provide patients with the blood products they need,” she said. “Donating at the Stony Brook University Hospital Blood Bank is truly an example of community service.”
Since they are not affiliated with NYBC, SBUH’s blood supply is currently stable, but their demand has reached pre-COVID-19 levels. “There is a critical need to meet the challenges for blood donations created by the pandemic,” she said.
The same hospital, the same doctor, the same day and month. With all that, there’s very little separating this father and baby girl, save a few years.
Sean Ryan and Emily Sugarman, of Rocky Point, are the new parents of little baby girl, Lily Sugarman-Ryan, who was born Oct. 6 at St. Charles Hospital. Funnily enough, that is the same date and the same place where Ryan was born 26 years ago. Young Lily was also delivered by the same doctor, Dr. Gus San Roman, who delivered her father.
Ryan, a construction superintendent, and Sugarman, a nurse at Peconic Bay Medical Center, were originally anticipating the birth of their first child Sept 23. Though Ryan, who, as a kind of joke, told his wife throughout the pregnancy he knew the baby would be born on his birthday. She wasn’t buying it, knowing it was rare she would deliver her baby so long after the due date.
St. Charles Hospital officials said that after September came and went, doctors decided it was time “to give the baby an eviction notice.” Ryan said his first thought wasn’t hinging on the date, but instead about his girlfriend’s and unborn child’s health.
Though indeed, in the weeks before going to the hospital, Ryan said in chatting with his mother and describing where and with what doctor their daughter would be born.
San Roman did not know it was the husband’s birthday, but they scheduled Sugarman to arrive at the hospital that Tuesday evening. She was originally set to be induced then give birth the following day. At the last minute, the time was moved to that morning, but still there was no given she would be born on that day either.
As the soon-to-be mother was going into labor, just minutes before the new daughter was set to be born, San Roman was told he was the same doctor who delivered Ryan.
Lily was born at 6:26 p.m. Oct. 6, weighing 8 pounds and 3 ounces.
Sean said the doctor was astonished and asked, “Are you sure it wasn’t my brother?” Dr. Gerardo San Roman, Gus’ brother, is also an obstetrician. When hospital records were checked, the proof was there. Dr. Gus San Roman delivered Sean Ryan Oct. 6, 1994, at St. Charles Hospital. As Sean and Emily prepared to bring their baby girl home a few days later, they said it would be a joy to have a dual birthday celebration in all the years to come.
Now that Ryan and Sugarman have returned to their Rocky Point home, the husband said his daughter has been “an angel,” and that “she just eats and sleeps and goes to the bathroom.” He added that he appreciates everything St. Charles did to help them, and that they’ll likely be back in the future for the next
little one.
San Roman, himself the father of six daughters, reportedly beamed as he gave parenting advice to the proud new parents.
“A new addition to one’s family is always a wonderful event but, to have your daughter’s arrival as your birthday present is utterly amazing,” he said. “I am honored that the generation of babies whose births I assisted now trust me to assist at their own. Lily’s birth will be one that I will always remember.”
At St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson and St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center in Smithtown, the use of face masks, regardless of the threat level from the virus that has claimed the lives of just over 2,000 people in Suffolk County and more than 144,000 in the United States, is likely to continue.
“I see [the use of] face masks moving forward.”
—Cecilia Hill
“I see [the use of] face masks moving forward,” said Cecilia Hill, director of Infection Prevention and Control at St. Charles.
Indeed, Hill and James O’Connor, president of St. Charles and St. Catherine’s hospitals, said they believe that masks were a critical part of protective equipment for staff.
Almost all of the antibody tests for staff at St. Charles came back negative, which Hill suggested “says a lot for what we were doing” to protect staff, including mask wearing and hand hygiene.
St. Charles recently restarted elective surgeries, which were on hold during the worst months of the pandemic on Long Island.
Anyone coming in for elective surgery needs a COVID-19 screening. The hospital also uses temperature screenings for staff and visitors. Medical personnel and visitors have to attest to the fact that they are feeling well and are showing no signs of the virus.
These procedures will “be in place for quite some time in the far future,” Hill said.
O’Connor said the two local hospitals didn’t meet Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) target for 90 day’s worth of personal protective equipment for every hospital, which was his original goal in case of another viral surge.
“No one is able to get those kinds of supplies,” O’Connor said. Still, he said the hospitals would be in “far better shape, assuming there’s a surge in the fall,” because they are collecting as much PPE as they can. The hospitals are also not using as many N95 masks as they were, in part because they are testing so many patients.
O’Connor declined to give the exact amount of PPE the hospitals had on hand.
Following health and safety guidelines during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic also helped lower the spread during the annual flu season.
A viral born respiratory illness like COVID, the flu typically threatens public health between December and the middle of May.
Suffolk County typically gets “slammed with the flu until the middle of May,” said Hill. This year, the last case was in March. While that could also be a product of people suffering through the flu without coming to a hospital during the pandemic, social distancing, face masks and sheltering in place likely reduced the spread of a disease that can also be fatal in some cases, though not nearly as much as COVID-19.
“My hope is that, because all of the testing, we are going to know earlier on that the wave is coming back.”
— James O’Connor
As the number of confirmed positive cases of people with COVID-19 has declined, O’Connor said the fear of going to the hospital for elective surgery is lower.
“Everybody is aware that the numbers are down on Long Island and in New York state,” he said. “My hope is that, because all of the testing, we are going to know earlier on that the wave is coming back.”
All elective surgeries have had testing done three days before the scheduled procedures. In cases where tests come back positive, the hospitals are postponing those procedures.
O’Connor said some of these tests have come back positive, even for people who are asymptomatic. The COVID-19 test is required for people who have fallen and fractured their hips.
“A number of positives are not because they are having symptoms,” O’Connor said. “They aren’t complaining of a fever or other respiratory problems. These are probably mild cases.”
O’Connor said it’s unclear from the literature that a mild case doesn’t spread as much as someone with full-blown COVID with a fever.
Indeed, some medical literature suggests that asymptomatic cases may shed even more of a viral load, he said.
Hill suggested there was a drastic contrast between patients who first came in with symptoms related to the virus and the people they are seeing now.
Part of the reason the prognosis has improved is that hospitals like St. Charles and St. Catherine’s have a much better idea of how to treat patients. Some drugs have helped relieve the symptoms associated with the virus.
As for the staff at the hospitals, O’Connor said he hopes they learned from the public health challenge during the worst of the first wave.
“You hope, and I would pretty much guess, that anybody who lived through it the first time will be very careful about potentially exposing themselves,” he said. “If you talk to people, what they are most concerned about is what’s coming back.”
Ultimately, O’Connor and Hill urged people to abide by the face mask guidelines, particularly when they are close to others. The decision not to wear a mask could have implications for the longevity of others who are following public health guidelines.
“Do the right thing,” O’Connor said. “Protect yourself and those around you.”
With the decision of Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) to lift the elective surgeries ban in Suffolk on May 16, area hospitals will be able to resume an important aspect of their day-to-day operations.
Hospital officials have praised the news because elective and emergency procedures are seen as a vital source of revenue for these facilities.
James O’Connor, president of St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson and chief administrative officer of St. Catherine of Siena Hospital in Smithtown, said it’s good news that both facilities can resume these important procedures.
“It’s a public health issue, you have these patients that were holding off on these urgent and vital surgeries,” he said. “Those needs didn’t go away because of COVID-19.”
O’Connor said between them the two hospitals perform around 750-800 surgeries a month. Orthopedic, bariatric, spine and general surgeries are the most common. The hospitals have already started to bring back staff and furloughed workers have been contacted and will report back to work.
Elective/urgent surgeries have been put on hold for nearly two months, in an effort to ensure there were sufficient hospital beds and medical staff available to handle the surge in COVID-19 cases.
The St. Charles president said that he expects the hospitals to be back “at full volume” in performing surgeries by sometime next month.
“After week one, we will be ramping up the percentage of surgeries that will be done,” he said. “The first week will be at 25 percent and then we’ll keep going forward.”
Stony Brook University Hospital has begun bringing back personnel to the Ambulatory Surgery Center, main operating room and other areas.
“The hospital is looking forward to rescheduling cases to provide the care necessary for its patients and addressing their surgical needs as soon as possible,” said Carol Gomes, chief executive officer at Stony Brook University Hospital.
On average, approximately 100-120 cases daily are performed at the hospital. Those include general surgery, orthopedics, neurosurgery, surgical oncology, cardiac surgery, trauma, kidney transplants, urologic procedures and gynecologic surgery.
The return of these services will help hospitals who are in the midst of financial hardship from the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
According to a report from the American Hospital Association, U.S. hospitals and health systems have lost around $50 billion per month on average during the COVID-19 crisis. From March 1 to June 30, the association estimates a total of $202.6 billion in losses.
“Hospitals and health systems face catastrophic financial challenges in light of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the AHA said in the report.
The association also predicted more financial hardship as millions of people could be left unemployed and lose health insurance. It could lead to increased uncompensated care at hospitals.
O’Connor said without those services health care systems would cease to function.
At Huntington Hospital, a member of Northwell Health, officials have started to implement a daily symptom screening policy for all staff and developed a non-COVID care pathway for all elective/urgent procedures — from parking and presurgical testing to discharge. For the last eight weeks the hospital has been performing surgery on emergency cases.
“I am confident we are prepared to safely take the next step with elective surgeries,” said Dr. David Buchin, director of Bariatric Surgery at Huntington Hospital.
Stony Brook University Hospital will also implement a number of safeguards in preparation for elective surgery patients. In addition to expanding on the use of telehealth, it will test all patients prior to surgery and have them self-isolate prior to operations.
For St. Charles and St. Catherine hospitals, O’Connor said all patients will be required to undergo a COVID-19 test 72 hours before a planned procedure.
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