Elective surgeries may resume soon at Samaritan

MOSES LAKE — Elective surgeries might begin again next week at Moses Lake’s Samaritan Healthcare, a development likely to be warmly welcomed by patients and to lift the finances of the hospital, which is operated by a public hospital district.

All hospitals in Washington were ordered to suspend elective surgeries, as designated by state officials, in mid-March as part of the response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Governor Jay Inslee ordered the halt in elective surgeries to last through May 18.

The director of nursing at Samaritan, Jan Sternberg, said that May 18 expiration date was unchanged as of May 12.

“We have not heard anything different,” she said.

Hospital officials, she said, are hoping it expires then.

Inslee revised the order in late April, allowing hospitals to offer some services if they met criteria designed to reduce the possibility of spreading COVID-19. One of the conditions is an adequate supply of masks, isolation gowns and other protective equipment. Sternberg said the hospital has adequate supplies, in the opinion of state officials.

“We’re exactly where the state wants us to be,” Sternberg said.

The first goal will be to help surgeons catch up with cases that were deferred in March and April, she said.

The prohibition has led to a downturn in the financial picture for the hospital district. In March, Samaritan recorded a net loss of more than three-quarters of a million dollars, and officials said recently that operating revenue during March and April had come in $15 million below budgeted forecasts.

If the prohibition does expire May 18, the hospital will be required to implement practices to lessen the risk of infection. Patients will be tested for COVID-19 two days before their scheduled surgery. If the test is negative, patients will be screened when they enter the hospital for surgery and will receive a mask to wear while waiting.

The surgical schedule will be revised to make it possible to maintain social distancing in the short stay unit (where patients wait prior to surgery) and postoperative rooms. The schedule also will be revised to reduce waiting times to a minimum, she said.

One visitor will be allowed per patient, and all visitors will be screened when they enter the facility. The visitor will wait in the patient’s room during the surgery, although people waiting for someone having an outpatient procedure can wait outside.

If a patient has to stay overnight, the visitor can come into the patient’s room the day of the surgery, but no more visitors will be allowed until the patient is discharged.

Samaritan is in a good position to open if the order does expire on May 18, Sternberg said, but whether or not it actually does expire will depend on hospitals statewide. State officials are requiring adequate capacity to treat patients in the case of an increase in COVID-19 cases and that hospitals have adequate supplies of protective equipment.