U.S. Department of Defense doctors and nurses are wrapping up their first week scrubbing in at Spectrum Health hospitals. It's part of a request made by the governor's office last month in response to a surge of COVID-19 cases in West Michigan.
"It gives our staff just a little bit of a relief," Julie Bulson, director of business assurance with Spectrum Health, says.
The hospital system is seeing a 20% rise in patient population, with more than 400 positive patients in the hospital and more than 100 people in the ICU with COVID-19.
"We do anticipate hitting the peak of a surge from other predictive analyses that are out there either between now and in mid-January," Bulson says.
A 22-person team of doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists from the Department of Defense are here to help, arriving last weekend.
"I'm just happy to be here, happy to help out and just provide any support that's needed," Capt. Chavez Scott says.
He's an emergency medicine physician and he sees about a dozen COVID-19 patients a day in the ICU, alongside Spectrum Health staff.
"It kind of lets me know that they had been just putting in work for so long with the surge and overload," Capt. Scott says,
It's not just the surge of cases putting pressure on the hospital system, but staffing shortages are contributing to the situation.
"We have several hundreds of open positions that are posted on our website right now for clinical staff, and that goes across ICU and medical surge and emergency departments," Bulson says.
The federal team hopes to take care of as many patients as possible, and they hope to lighten the physical and mental load of local doctors and nurses.
"Just being able to kind of lighten that patient load really says a lot, and it just kind of translates to why they're so happy that we're here," Capt. Scott says. "And not a day goes by that Spectrum Health doesn't show their appreciation."
Spectrum Health recently added 60 ICU beds to keep up with the ongoing surge, and the federal team will be here until early January.
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