Martha’s Vineyard Hospital officials confirmed Wednesday that a Covid-19 patient had been transferred to a Boston hospital in critical condition earlier this week — the first patient transfer since the early days of the pandemic.
The transfer comes as cases have surged on the Island in recent weeks, with health officials reporting more than 100 cases.
Hospital leaders urged renewed caution and vigilance at a press briefing Wednesday morning — especially with the holidays approaching.
“We need to get back to the basics. There’s no new secret sauce,” hospital president and CEO Denise Schepici said. “It’s what we’ve been saying all along. We need to wear a mask. We need to keep a social distance of six feet. And of course, we need to wash our hands.”
Later Wednesday afternoon the Island boards of health reported 10 new confirmed cases on the Vineyard and one symptomatically diagnosed case. Seven of the cases were reported by the hospital and two were reported from TestMV, the free testing site at the regional high school. One case was a symptomatic diagnosis from Tuesday made by a private physician and later confirmed in a PCR test.
As of Wednesday the total case count since last Friday on the Vineyard stood at 47.
The patient transfer occurred via Medflight helicopter on Monday evening, head nurse and chief operations officer Claire Seguin confirmed. Ms. Seguin said the patient arrived at the Vineyard hospital in critical condition and was not formally admitted. The patient was transferred to a hospital in Boston.
Ms. Seguin did not have a formal update on the patient’s condition, but said she believed it was still critical.
The hospital has now transferred at least three patients to Boston hospitals via helicopter since the pandemic began. The transfer Monday is the first since early April.
Two patients in fair condition were admitted to the hospital in October with the virus. Those patients were both released in good condition after brief stays at the facility.
On Wednesday, Ms. Seguin explained the hospital’s decision-making process when determining whether a patient gets admitted to the hospital or is transferred for more intensive care. The hospital has three intensive care units, but is part of the Mass General-Brigham system, giving it transfer access to the much larger Boston facility.
“We have triage protocols that we use here, whether a patient has Covid-19 or not, to decide appropriateness for them stay here at the hospital,” Ms. Seguin said. “And I would say that this patient was sicker than that. So this patient really needed to go to one of the Boston hospitals.”
Hospital officials said that of the 150 patients who had tested positive for the virus at the facility since the pandemic began, 83 had come in the past two weeks. The hospital is testing symptomatic patients and their close contacts for the virus.
Officials said they had reentered incident command earlier this month, which streamlines hospital communications in the case of emergencies. But they added that the rise in cases had not substantially changed their protocols or preparations, which Ms. Seguin said would remain similar should the Island start to see an increase in hospitalizations or sick patients.
“The numbers are definitely sobering,” Ms. Seguin said. “But we have those protocols in place. We’re ready if patients come and ready to transport if we need to, holding some of the less sick patients here. But the teams are ready.”
When cases surged in Boston at the onset of the pandemic the Island largely avoided a spike in case numbers. Hospital officials felt that the increased numbers on the Island now were the result of relaxed social distancing and mask wearing precautions.
“We think this is directly related to social gatherings and people not paying attention to precaution, and that’s really it,” Ms. Seguin said. “It did happen in Boston, as you know, the first time around, but we were very lucky here.”
Case numbers statewide remained high on Wednesday, with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health reporting 2,744 new cases and 47 new deaths.
The total case count statewide stood at 189,518. On the Vineyard there have been 255 total cases to date, and climbing.
With Thanksgiving a week away and in light of the case surge, hospital leaders urged Islanders planning to travel or host large numbers of guests to rethink their holiday plans.
“We need to be extremely careful now as we watch the numbers of cases growing across the country, state, and here on the Island,” Ms. Schepici said. “With the holidays upon us, we only see this situation as more of a concern and getting worse . . . limit travel, even with your loved ones.”
She concluded by offering her gratitude to Islanders for maintaining vigilance in the face of pandemic fatigue.
“While you know we won’t be having big gatherings, certainly not at my house and probably most homes this year, I do want to reflect on all the things that we have to be grateful for,” Ms. Schepici said. “And I’m very grateful for the folks in the community, the boards of health, our wonderful staff at the hospital, for all the great things that they have done to try to protect this community.”
Updated to include daily case numbers, reported Wednesday afternoon.
Comments (2)
Comments
Comment policy »