Eastern Health CEO hopes for return to full operations at St. John’s facilities by Monday – The Telegram

This was Eastern Health CEO David Diamond's office setup for the three nights he spent at the Health Sciences Centre following Friday's storm. - Contributed

Eastern Health CEO David Diamond has spent a lot of time at his office in the Health Sciences Centre of late more perhaps than he bargained for. He arrived there last Friday morning and didn't get home until Monday night, and slept on a cot in his office.

"I did have a night bag and toothbrush and change of clothes, so we were anticipating we might be here for a period of time, he told The Telegram Wednesday. Of course, it turned out we were here for days."

It certainly hasn't been business as usual for the health-care sector in St. John's this week, with only emergent and urgent services offered as the city deals with an ongoing state of emergency.

But Diamond is hopeful things will be back to normal by at least next Monday.

"If all goes well, we're working on the assumption that on the outside at least by Monday, we would be out of the state of emergency," he said, noting Eastern Health does have staff inside the provincial emergency operations centre and is co-ordinating its operations in consultation with the city.

"That's just my assumption. It's not anything from the city. But our planning assumption is that by Monday we could be back then for full service. And we'll spend all of next week getting caught up. We're looking at things like some evening shifts and things. We think that between Monday and Friday next week, anything critical that we've missed this week, we'll actually be caught up and back in business."

While Eastern Health ideally wants to ramp up its health-care services quickly, the regional health authority also respects the city's need to limit the number of vehicles using the roads during a state of emergency.

"We have been slowly ramping up," Diamond said. "We're doing some surgeries (Wednesday). We've got some cardiac surgery happening. In (the Dr. H. Bliss Murphy Cancer Centre), we've continued to do chemotherapy and radiation. Our approach has been as we can create capacity, we're calling people to say, 'OK, you can come in now because you're in that urgent, emergent or near-urgent category and we want to get you in so that the time delay is not impacting you.'"

In a news release issued Wednesday afternoon, Eastern Health said it is contacting patients to rebook missed appointments, procedures and surgeries related to the recent snowstorm. It also announced a number of services would be reactivated Thursday at a reduced level, including outpatient blood collection at the Health Sciences Centre, St. Clare's Mercy Hospital and the Janeway. This service will be restricted to urgent blood collection only.

Last weekend, Diamond was among hundreds of people sleeping at Eastern Health facilities on the Avalon and Bonavista peninsulas. He knows of some workers who came in last Friday morning even though their shifts didn't start until the evening.

"They knew their patients would need them. They knew their colleagues would need them to get spelled off at the end of an eight-hour or 12-hour shift."

There were logistical challenges to overcome in making sure there was enough food available for those who were stranded, and it ultimately took two days before they were in a position to start bringing in new people to change shifts. It was a big deal for staff who were trying to care for people while also finding time to rest in circumstances they weren't accustomed to, Diamond said, noting it was important to keep staff safe.

Diamond was impressed with the way Eastern Health staff handled the ordeal, making specific mention of paramedics who had to drive behind snowplows to reach patients needing help. He recalled spending some time with them last Saturday at two o'clock in the morning.

"They couldn't do a run without the city plows being in front of them, and the plow would make a single cut and they would describe to me scenarios where the two mirrors on both sides would be scraping the snow as they were going through this single cut," Diamond said. "They get to a house and then they had to wade through snow that was chest high and then get somebody ... who they couldn't take on a stretcher, get them out of the house and into the back of an ambulance. Heroic things that were done, and that's just one area of example. But the paramedics, to me, were just unbelievable in what they did to keep people safe."

Twitter: @CBNAndrew

This story has been edited to clarify the location of chemotherapy and radiation.

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Eastern Health CEO hopes for return to full operations at St. John's facilities by Monday - The Telegram