Sheldon Iowa — In addition to the easing of restrictions on restaurants and other businesses around the state, Governor Reynolds also has proclaimed that Iowa hospitals can resume conducting elective procedures, something the hospitals were prevented from doing by one of Reynolds’ earlier COVID-19 proclamations.
Rick Nordahl is CEO of Sanford Sheldon Medical Center, and he talks about what the easing of the restrictions mean for the Sheldon hospital, as well as the community.
(As above) “What it really means is we can get back to some normalcy from a standpoint of screening colonoscopies, routine hernia repairs, mammograms, more blood work to be done for diagnostic tools for the physicians, medication refills were they need blood draws. We didn’t really shut those down, but we kind of collapsed them until we knew that we could have safe processes within our facility to ensure that people couldn’t contract the COVID-19 here.”
He says to keep patients and employees safe from COVID-19 everyone will be screened when they come in to the facility.
(As above) “We still have to maintain a sense of security and safety for all of our patients so it doesn’t matter if you’re coming to the clinic to see the doctor or coming into the O. R. to have a procedure done, we take it very seriously, we make sure that we screen everybody coming in. Our employees are screened every day for their temperature and signs and symptoms, and the same is done for anybody coming in for an elective procedure.”
Nordahl talks about the COVID-19 screening procedures in place at Sanford Sheldon.
(As above) “All the testing that we’re doing for the most part is curbside. So if somebody comes to the facility, no matter what time of day, we’re asking them to call first if they have signs and symptoms of COVID. We’ll give them a testing time they can come, they’ll pull up to the curb, we test them. If they’re well enough to go home we send them home, if they’re not then we admit them to the hospital.”
He says people can spread COVID-19 without experiencing any symptoms themselves.
(As above) “We hear the word asymptomatic a lot in the news, and I don’t know that everybody understands what that means. What that really means is if you’re asymptomatic you have the virus, you can shed and spread the virus, and you don’t know it because you don’t have any signs and symptoms and you may never get any signs and symptoms but you can do this at least four days before you get signs and symptoms, so asymptomatic means you can spread the virus without even knowing you have it and that the critical element to control spread then is that cloth face mask that allows you to protect everybody around you from getting the virus that you could potentially spread.”
With the Governor’s easing of restrictions on elective surgeries, Nordahl says Sanford Sheldon is ramping up the process.
(As above) “We’re ramping those up now so we are going to book the schedules as full as we can so that we keep people safe and that there’s space between them so we can allow people to get in and out of the facility without having you know crowding issues and waiting room issues. So we are ready to go though we’ve got people on the phone calling to get those things rescheduled, I encourage you use your my chart if you’ve got it with Sanford it’s an easy way to schedule something get a hold of somebody, it’s right online, it’s a great tool.”
For more information you can call Sanford Sheldon, or consult your Sanford My Chart online.
