Houston Healthcare alters med-stop hours

HOUSTON COUNTY, Ga. — A healthy work-life balance is not always the easiest thing to achieve, especially when working in a field that has an impact on your community and the people around you. For medical staff, that balance became even harder to maintain once the COVID-19 pandemic swept over the globe, when their expertise and care became instrumental to the safety and well-being for so many of the people around them. Houston Healthcare is no exception to the rule.

However, as their hospitals and med-stops begin to see a decline in patients requiring that kind of care, they hope to help their staff to return to a better balance.

While COVID-19 numbers were high in Houston County, Houston Healthcare’s med-stops were open for new patients for 12 hours a day. Now with COVID-19 numbers in decline, they will be returning to the hours they held prior to the pandemic: their doors will lock 30 minutes earlier, allowing staff to care for remaining patients, and then return home.

Laurie Darsey and Dr. Kim Ham, the director and medical director of Houston Healthcare’s med-stops, provided details on the change.

“Bonaire opens from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week,” Darsey said. “What we’ve done with their hours for them is gone back to our original hours of operations. They open at [7 a.m.], and at 6:30 p.m., we lock the door, but we continue to see all the patients that have come in.”

The two other med-stops, the Pavilion and Lake Joy, will shift similarly.

The Pavilion, with doors previously open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., will now lock its doors at 7:30 p.m. and care for those who are inside. Lake Joy will shift from being open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., to locking its doors at 8:30 p.m.

According to Darsey, this normalization effort has been tied to the trends of COVID-19. The hope is to give med-stop staff more standard hours.

“What we did do here temporarily through this last big COVID surge, was try to stay open for the full 12 hours,” Darsey said. “It was truly putting staff here at 13, 14 hours a day. We were seeing 300-400 people a day during the height of some of surges. We’re now in a plateau with our COVID numbers, and we felt it was the best time to try and normalize our hours of operation again, to take care of all our patients and our staff.”

Even with longer hours than normal, Darsey said that Houston Healthcare is blessed to have the staff they do, with their long-term work in this field and the knowledge they have gained.

“They really are heroes,” Darsey said. “The COVID surges that we’ve had have been tremendous, and they’ve responded very well — they rose to the challenge.”

Ham co-signed Darsey’s statement, telling The Journal that she is proud to be a part of the team.

“I’ve never worked with people who maintain positive attitudes, such a strong work ethic and teamwork, as here at Houston,” Ham said.

As of this story’s writing, there are 13 individuals currently hospitalized for COVID-19 at Houston Healthcare’s facilities, however Ham also explained that the number of those infected with COVID-19 most likely is not as low as many might think. Ham said that many people are not getting tested for the virus, that home tests are not accounted for in their databases and that many places do not require the “gold standard” PCR test and instead allow the use of the rapid test.

Darsey closed the discussion, voicing her gratitude for the staff she works with.

“Our mission is to serve the community, and we’re very blessed, with our providers and our support staff, the teams have been given a very difficult challenge over the last two or three years now,” Darsey said. “I think we’ve rose to the occasion. It’s inspiring to be a part of such a good team. We’ll be available and make adjustments as things change within the community. That’s what we’re here to do — we’re here to serve.”

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