Care continues despite state rule
The New York State Department of Health on Monday (December 20) added Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown to its list of health care facilities with “minimal capacity,” forcing a temporary halt to elective surgeries and procedures for at least two weeks beginning Wednesday, December 22.
The Department also added Cobleskill Regional Hospital to its December 20 list of “impacted facilities;” they join the previously listed Fox Hospital in Oneonta and Little Falls Hospital.
Under a November Executive Order from Governor Kathy Hochul, the state bars facilities with a staffed bed capacity of 10 percent or less from performing certain elective procedures and surgeries. Certain electives remain allowed, including those relating to cancer and diagnostic reviews, neurosurgery, intractable pain, trauma, cardiac with symptoms, and others.
All 28 hospitals on this week’s list are located in upstate New York, where officials report a steep increase in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks. The nation’s Center for Disease Control reported this week that Omicron accounts for nearly three-quarters of all cases across the country.
Dr. William LeCates, Northeast Regional Exec-utive for Bassett Healthcare Network, said the state’s temporary hold is not far afield from the Network’s case management throughout the pandemic.
“We’ve been careful about elective procedures for months,” he said. “We defer the treating physician or practitioner’s direction for care for their individual patients. If a patient is in pain or needs immediate attention, we take care of it. If the practitioner consults with the patient and decides it’s something that can be deferred, we follow that.”
“People who have scheduled procedures will hear directly from their provider,” he said, urging patients to stay in touch with their care providers.
“We always care for people seeking care,” he said, assuring people that the state’s temporary hold does not close any hospital doors. “We provide the assessment and the care whether we’re busy or limited under state regulations.”
DOH limitations and the current Omicron-fueled COVID-19 positivity surge, however, pushed Bassett Healthcare to suspend visitation in all emergency departments across its network beginning December 22.
“Our emergency departments can get a little crowded with patients and visitors,” he said. “We want to protect the safety of patients and staff in all of our facilities.”
He said those patients staying in hospital rooms may still have visitors under existing COVID visitation protocols in place throughout the Basset network.
“We want safety and we want healing,” he said. “We want patients to be able to have visitors during this important holiday time. We continue to ask that everyone be mindful of safety and follow the procedures.”
Otsego County officials continue to contend with the Omicron surge, reporting a 9.3 percent seven-day average percentage positive and more than 300 active cases. The county and all of New York State remain under an indoor mask mandate from Governor Kathy Hochul through January 15, 2022, with exceptions under certain conditions.
County Public Health Director Heidi Bond talked with The Freeman’s Journal/Hometown Oneonta about enforcing the mask rule.
“If we see complaints about businesses not requiring masks, we try to educate them,” Ms. Bond said. “Outside of that, we don’t have the resources to do anything else.”
She said rapidly increasing COVID-19 infections could continue well into the new year.
“It’s going to take a few months before we get out of this surge with people gathering for Christmas and New Year’s,” she said.