Plans progress on WRH upgrades, flu season, allowing visitors

While it doesn’t seem like much is being done at Whitfield Regional Hospital, the behind-the-scenes activity is going full speed ahead.

“It’s never quick enough,” said CEO/Administrator Doug Brewer.

Bids were expected Wednesday for replacing 80 percent of the roof of the hospital to prevent the leaks that have plagued the building for years. With Hurricane Sandy interrupting things, however, the bid deadline was extended to Sept. 22.

Brewer said 20 to 30 contractors from as far away as Oklahoma City came for the pre-bid conference, although he said he hopes to be able to use local firms wherever possible.

Within the next two weeks another pre-bid conference will be held on reconstructing the front parking lot and the building façade, the “skin” of the building which has deteriorated over the years.

Then the hospital will get down to the “meat and potatoes” work. That includes the expansion and redesign of the Emergency Department, ICU and operating rooms.

A lot of new equipment has been ordered for WRH and has arrived or is coming in. Brewer is most impressed with the 34 hospital beds that are replacing those that were 28 years old.

“They’re amazing,” he said. “They’re works of art.”

The new Hill-Rom beds actually can talk to the patients and have a lot of extra features that make patient care better.

After consulting with Spire Energy, the hospital looks to save anywhere from $100,000 to $300,000 annually on operating costs with new boilers, replacing the ones that are almost 50 years old.

“We’re operating with prehistoric equipment,” Brewer said.

Staffing continues to expand as well. Three surgeons with the University of Alabama at Birmingham now perform surgeries three days a week, and plans are to grow to five days weekly.

Dr. Keith Roberts also continues to perform surgeries in addition to directing the Wound Care Clinic and handling shifts in the Emergency Department.

Brewer was happy to announce that the numbers of COVID-19 patients has decreased dramatically within the last two weeks. They have dropped from highs in the upper teens to three or four.

Those numbers could change. “We’re still waiting on Labor Day” effects, he added.

With the flu season approaching, the hospital is taking a pro-active approach so the healthcare community doesn’t have to cope with two serious viruses at the same time. It is offering to take its mobile unit to “anybody that will have us” throughout the county and the surrounding area.

It’s not just about the flu shots, he added. “There are a lot of people sitting at home with chronic issues that are not being treated.”

Fearing they may contract the coronavirus, “so many people are afraid to go to the hospital,” Brewer said, and many are neglecting their health as a result.

Any group interested is invited to contact the hospital to schedule the mobile unit.

While Gov. Kay Ivey hasn’t lifted her restrictive orders when it comes to visitors, her office and the Department of Public Health have encouraged hospitals to begin looking at how they can begin allowing people in again without endangering public health.

WRH has “put together a group that’s working on it,” Brewer said. The hospital already has eased slightly the restrictions on visitors to non-COVID patients.

Recently Brewer began again making his daily visits to non-COVID patients in the hospital, a practice he had to curtail during the height of the pandemic.

“It is unbelievable to me how much family members and loved ones are part of getting somebody better. You’re really balancing the risk of COVID against the benefits of love.”