Rome Memorial Hospital seeks retired health-care workers for help with virus patients

ROME, N.Y. — Rome Memorial Hospital (RMH) is encouraging retired health-care professionals who are interested in rejoining the workforce “temporarily” to contact its human-resources (HR) department.

RMH is seeking the extra personnel “with the surge in [COVID-19] hospitalizations expected to continue beyond the holidays,” per a release.

All skill sets and specialties are needed, and the HR department is available at (315) 338-7219, RMH said.

The hospital also noted that if your registration has lapsed, Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently announced that registrations will be renewed at no cost for health-care professionals who complete the questionnaire through the New York State Department of Health portal: https://apps.health.ny.gov/pub/servny/.

“The hospital’s leadership team meets twice a day to evaluate our staffing needs to ensure that we have enough people to care for our patients. Our dedicated frontline professionals are taking on extra shifts. Directors, managers and educators have returned to the bedside,” Samantha Vining, VP of clinical services and chief nursing officer, said.

Vining added that retired health-care professionals — including nurses, respiratory therapists, and aides — can provide that extra assistance to support the current staff because “they already understand the importance of infection prevention and patient privacy.”

Since Thanksgiving, RMH has seen an increase in the number of COVID-positive patients requiring hospitalization and the number “continues to rise.” The hospital established a separate COVID unit to isolate patients. In addition, patients who are critically ill receive care in the intensive-care unit.

RMH had 21 COVID-19 patients, as of Thursday’s Oneida County daily coronavirus update.

RMH submitted its surge plan to New York in March when the pandemic hit.

“We currently have the bed capacity and can create additional space to meet the governor’s requirements to increase capacity. The challenge for us and all hospitals is having enough staff if hospitalizations continue to increase exponentially. That’s why it’s so critically important that our community take steps to prevent the spread of COVID,” Vining said.