UH St. John Update: Social Distancing, Masks & Hand Hygiene

It has been 5 months since the start of the nationwide pandemic, and UH St John Medical Center President and CEO Rob David reports the Westlake hospital is doing well.

“We’re doing amazing with the team we have here,” reports David. “I am so fortunate to work with these people every single day.

“The issue is that this whole pandemic has been hard on people. It’s been hard on their families, businesses, so many different factions of our community. As I reflect back on it, it’s like our people need to try and to catch up for lost time. Some may not have seen their family in weeks or been to their favorite restaurant in forever.”

Most people in the community are doing a good job observing healthy protocols. “But we are still seeing Covid patients every day,” says David.  “It hasn’t lessened any. We are better prepared over the past 4 months to take care of these patients and have the proper protective equipment for all our employees. I can’t tell you how important that masking and hand hygiene continues to be.

“The preparations we made back in March were great. You had to have a complete commitment from the team and our team of employees, physicians, providers here. They have been just so resilient – smiles the whole time! The outpouring of support from our community was just amazing and so appreciated by our staff. The food, the protective equipment that people donated was just overwhelming.

“Our numbers here are actually not as high as some of the others around the community. I attribute this to the Nursing Homes in this area preparing themselves, limiting visitations, and vigilance with screenings of those who come to their buildings from a temperature and symptoms standpoint.”

“The next thing all of us would love to see is a vaccine. I know they are working so hard to come up with a vaccine, but I think that what the Governor and Medical Director for the State of Ohio have advocated – social distancing, masks and hand hygiene – those are the most important things.”

“It is going to be interesting how the fall plays out with schools,” concludes David. “How many are going to open? Dr. Joan Zoltanski’s UH Healthy Restart Playbook has been fantastic. We spoke with a number of area superintendents and tried to assist in any way we could. It makes you proud to help the community.”

Here is a link the the UH Healthy Restart Playbook: www.thevillagernewspaper.com/2020/05/28/university-hospitals-launches-uh-healthy-restart-playbook-to-help-businesses-restart-2/