Health Team

Field hospitals, staff training, more protective gear part of UNC Health's virus preparations

UNC Health executives are exploring the possibility of opening up off-site field hospitals to handle a potential surge of coronavirus patients.

Posted Updated

By
Sarah Krueger
, WRAL Durham reporter
CHAPEL HILL, N.C.UNC Health executives are exploring the possibility of opening up off-site field hospitals to handle a potential surge of coronavirus patients.

Christian Lawson, director of emergency services at UNC Medical Center, said he is preparing the hospital system in every possible way for the pandemic, including talking with state health officials about potential sites for extra beds.

"I want to be criticized in six months for over-planning and likely spending too much money, because these responses are obviously really expensive," Lawson said Monday. "I think we cannot mess around with this virus at all, and we need to have every plan that we can possibly think through, needs to be vetted and planned accordingly."

UNC is talking with Duke University Health System and WakeMed officials about coordinating their response to the pandemic, he said.

Lawson said all hospital staff at UNC will eventually be trained to handle patients with COVID-19, the illness associated with the coronavirus. That prepares the hospital both for a surge in patients and in case up to half of the staff gets infected and cannot work.

"We want to plan for the worst and obviously hope for the best and likely be somewhere in between," he said.

UNC Medical Center is at about 60 percent capacity now.

"We have a lot of open beds, which we’ve never seen or experienced this. It’s a really eerie calm before the storm," he said.

The hospitals also have an "adequate" supply of personal protective equipment, or PPE, such as masks, gowns and gloves to meet current needs, Lawson said.

"Right now, we are able to follow all of the recommended CDC guidelines, and we’re not asking anyone to cut any corners," he said. "Obviously, we want our health care workers to be safe and cared for and with the adequate PPE that they need."

Much of the global supply of PPE is manufactured in China, so the virus starting there interrupted normal supply lines and burned up a lot of capacity off the bat, Lawson said.

"That instantaneously put a gap in the supply chain for the entire globe," he said. "The supply chain is starting to fill back up with appropriate PPE."

Some items, like N95 masks, are much pricier than usual, Lawson said, but UNC Health and other area hospitals have benefited from supply donations from inidividuals and groups.

"The sheer outpouring of the community really brings back the thought of how great of a country we are, how great of a region we are and that there is humanity still out there," he said, noting that UNC alone has received more than 500,000 donated items.

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