MMCBD CEO Continues To Sound Alarm As COVID Surge Is Impacting Staff

(Beaver Dam) The Marshfield Medical Center – Beaver Dam Chief Administrative Officer continues to sound the alarm as the rise in COVID cases and hospitalization rates are impacting her employees. Angelia Foster says staff had a quick break last week where the hospital was only at 50-percent of their normal average daily census. She says that only lasted about a day, as roughly 24-hours later they were up to 96-percent of capacity.

The staffing issues, Foster says, has made it difficult to meet day to day needs and treat heartaches and strokes. She says they do not want to separate care or make difficult medical ethical decisions but if the numbers continue to persist, they will get to a point where they will have to decide who gets care and who does not. Foster says over the last year-and-a-half, those who were near the end of their careers decided to call it quits due to the stress of the pandemic.

She says it makes it harder when a staff member needs to go into quarantine because of a close contact with someone who contracted COVID. The staffing issues, Foster says, has made it difficult to meet day to day needs. She says on a recent Sunday, the facility had to put out an “all call” and ask anyone who can to come in to help because there were too many people in the building and they were so short staffed.

Foster says they are still growing and posting job openings online because they are expanding their services and offerings for the community. She says they currently have a vacancy rate of 20-percent.