While it lacks the amenities of Kent or the other hospitals with COVID-19 patients, the first patient transferred to the Cranston field hospital on Monday afternoon and those following him have something to celebrate.
The fact they have been transferred to the field hospital is an indication they are improving and are expected to be well enough to leave in another four or five days.
That’s a positive way of looking at the field hospital in the former Citizens Bank office building. The negative is that the hospital needs to open at all. As of Monday, Kent had 80 COVID patients and housing more would have meant displacing other patients.
Robert Haffey, president and CEO of Kent Hospital, said Monday the transfer of “less acuity patients” allowed the hospital to move patients that had temporarily been boarded in the emergency department to rooms of their own. Haffey said the field hospital is enabling Kent to maintain operations while caring for those who “are sick enough to still be in the hospital and not well enough to go home.”
Also, he reasons this is healthier for the community than what happened following the shutdown in March. As people were fearful of contracting the virus at hospital, he said, they postponed regular screenings and procedures that in the long run hurt them.
“A lot of people let things go because they were afraid,” he said.
On Monday, the Kent staff gave House Majority Leader and future House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi and Senate Majority Leader Michael McCaffrey a tour of the field hospital and the “C pod” that has been readied for the first patients. The field hospital is capable of accommodating 353 patients.
“When you see there’s a bed, there’s curtains, it’s not the most luxurious of facilities, but each one [pod] has 18 to 24 patients,” Dr. Paari Gopalakrishnan, Kent’s chief medical officer, told the legislative leaders.
He suggested the legislators think of the field hospital as “an extension of our hospital.”
He said the Kent team would assess the condition of its recuperating COVID patients, and when they reach the point where they can be safely cared for at the field hospital they would be moved by ambulance.
He said the field hospital is set up with oxygen and can do some medications, “but this is not a place where we want somebody on a ventilator.” Aisles divide pods with rows of beds on either side. Draw curtains to isolate beds provide some privacy. There are no televisions or bedside call buttons should patients be seeking assistance. Restrooms are not nearby. Portable bedside commodes are provided. The same company that operates the hospital kitchen is catering meals.
The first patient was outnumbered by staff, including two doctors – Dr. Laura Forman and Dr. Vince Varamo – three medical assistants, a registered nurse and supporting personnel.
Forman, a member of the team that directed the transformation of the former offices into a hospital in less than three weeks, is the chief medical officer at Kent’s Emergency Department and the field hospital.
On Monday, as preparations were made to receive the first patients, Gopalakrishnan said the team has been thinking of ways to keep patients entertained. Patients have access to movies and books on their phones and tablets. Tablets will be provided patients who don’t have them. Visitors will not be allowed at the field hospital and only patients transferred from a hospital will be admitted.
Still, the team is thinking of ways to keep patients engaged and on Monday talked about possible games and music. The field hospital is eerily quiet, like a cavernous warehouse – a reminder it’s not a place you want to be, although for the patients there it’s a sign they’re on the mend and could soon be going home.
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