St. Joe's Nurses Told To Reuse Masks Until Falling Apart: Email
JOLIET, IL — While AMITA Health Saint Joseph Medical Center continues to treat a rising number of coronavirus patients, hospital officials are advising their nurses to continue to reuse the same surgical mask until it falls apart, an email obtained by Joliet Patch shows.
Starting Friday, all employees within the medical center are required to wear a surgical mask inside the building. The only exception will be if employees are eating and ensuring 6-foot distancing, or when employees are in their offices by themselves with their door closed, the document indicates.
"Masks will be distributed at the hospital entrances, along with a paper bag in order to support its reuse," wrote Lynn Watson, chief nursing officer/vice president patient care services in an email to employees obtained by Patch.
As a result of Watson's email, Patch has learned that some hospital employees now fear they may get the coronavirus or inadvertently spread the virus because of the directive requiring reuse of masks until they are falling apart.
"This mask should be re-used until it has lost its integrity," Watson wrote, citing as examples the surgical mask being soiled, damp and ripped. "Please ensure you take this mask/bag combination home with you so you can mask upon entering the building each day. At this time, we are not endorsing cloth masks."
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Watson's email explained to AMITA St. Joe's nursing staff that the N95 masks are not being distributed to the vast majority of employees who work at the hospital.
"N95 masks are reserved only for aerosol generating procedures such as the COVID swabbing, suctioning, nebulizer treatments, Bipap, CPAP, etc.," Watson wrote.
The reason St. Joe's nurses and other employees are being given surgical masks instead of N95 masks, Watson's email explained, is because "we are burning through N95 masks at a much higher rate than other hospitals similar in size with the same number of COVID patients."
As of Thursday, April 2, AMITA St. Joe's in Joliet had "19 patients under investigation in house and 37 confirmed COVID-19 cases," Watson explained in her email.
In layman's terms, a patient under investigation is someone doctors and nursing staff suspect may have coronavirus, but are still awaiting the final test results.
In related news, the Will County Health Department announced on Friday that the total number of coronavirus cases in the entire county stands at 456, including 11 deaths.
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This article originally appeared on the Joliet Patch
