In their monthly meeting, the Weatherford Hospital Authority Board of Directors, it was presented as part of the hospital’s finances, a $174,418 profit for the hospital, in the month of June.
Year-to-date the financials show a net income of $227,133.
The board approved the purchase of $574,000 worth of equipment and technology to help the hospital prepare and administer COVID-19 treatment. The funds were used as part of the stimulus dollars given to the hospital to operate within the pandemic.
Among those items approved are bariatric beds, Skyler Life Paks, anesthesia machines, GE Panda Warmer with resuscitation, bipap, UV lighting for air handlers to kill microorganisms, and endoscopy storage closet and a Fugi portable x-ray conversion to digital.
Saint Anthony’s (SSM) representative Cindy Carmichael said SSM is seeing a severe surge in cases with more than 40 cases currently in the hospital site in Oklahoma City requiring special rooms. She said it is getting to a critical stage for them in the metro.
In a discussion of the local hospital’s preparedness for a surge in COVID-19 cases, head of nursing, Debbie Kifer, told the board the biggest obstacle with a surge in cases would be having sufficient personnel to handle the specialized care rather than need for more rooms and equipment.
“It can be like mass casualty to handle a real surge of COVID-19. Patients would have to be put it any areas of the hospital that can be isolated,” Kifer said.
A current concern for the hospital is the lack of test kits and the longer delay in getting test results back with the recent increase in testing.
SSM is considering purchasing the equipment to do the testing rather than having to send the samples to another lab in order to get results back faster and be able to encourage those testing positive to quarantine sooner.