Sheldon, Iowa — The country is still feeling the effects of COVID-19, and that is also true here in Sheldon. Many residents were wondering how COVID is being handled at our local hospital.
Dr. Amy Wingert, a medical practitioner at Sanford Sheldon, took the time to answer some of these questions on KIWA’s morning show.
(as said) ” So we all get tested daily for a health screening, Including our temperature, making sure that we haven’t had any risk factors. The same questions you guys get asked if you come into the clinic, we get asked every day, but we are not swabbed specifically for coronavirus”
Employees at the Sheldon Clinic are not tested for COVID every day, however, daily testing IS required for employees at the nursing home.
(as said) “So the nursing home employees are actually under a different mandate, so the federal government has come out with a new mandate for testing all nursing home employees at this time,” Dr. Wingert explains, “And so they’re recommended being tested because, if our county and our state is above 10% we have to test our employees for coronavirus because of the infection rate in our county, and our statewide regions.”
All of these regulations come from not only the federal government but also our state government. Dr. Wingert then goes on to explain how Sanford had done it’s first group test of employees for COVID last week, and what happened when they had one positive result within that test.
(as said) “When we tested all our employees, we actually came back with one positive test, however, that was an employee who had absolutely no symptoms, but because of that one positive test, we are considered to be in an outbreak area, and that is a standard written by the state and by the federal government. Which , obviously, to us is not an outbreak as the person didn’t have any symptoms what so ever, but, because there is a positive, we have to consider it as an outbreak. So you’ll hear that being said in the community.”
Employees are now being tested two times a week for COVID due to government and state mandates.
Dr. Wingert says there are still ways people can stay in touch with their relative in the nursing home.
(as said)“there are actually lots of ways to stay connected to the residents, one of them is we do have facility iPads so they can actually face time into their relatives and talk to them that way, they can stay connected via email’s, and you can also do Zoom meetings, which is similar to facetime where you are sitting there talking to your family member and having a conversation.”
Dr. Wingert wants residents to know that it is important to try and stay in touch with residents within the nursing home, especially in these trying times. She says that it really helps them along to make them feel much more at home.
