COVID-19 Update: Local hospitals short-staffed

Local hospitals, like many around the nation, are reporting staff shortages as COVID-19 cases continue to surge.

"We have experienced extreme staff shortages in the past four-to-six weeks with the recent surge, so we had a rapid hiring event on Wednesday and were able to make several offers," said Kaye Green, chief executive officer of Roosevelt General Hospital in Portales.

Green said RGH staffing is down to the "bare bones, but we're working hard to improve that."

She said the staff shortage is due to a combination of an increase in patient work load and the fact that some new hires decide after a short time that "maybe the health care profession is not for them."

Also some staff are leaving to take jobs as traveling nurses because it pays so well, she said.

"Recruitment and retention is a stark difference from what we typically experienced pre-COVID," she said. "Many of the frontline staff are working 60 to 80 hours a week now."

The issues are much of the same in Clovis.

Jorge Cruz, chief executive officer of Plains Regional Medical Center, said staffing shortages have forced him to "think creatively about how to fill these gaps."

Cruz said PRMC recently started a couple of programs, including "referral bonuses for those hard-to-fill positions as well as signing bonuses and crisis bonuses."

"We are also using some contract labor to fill out the schedules," he said.

"We are seeing shortages across the board from entry-level positions all the way up to nurses," he said. But, he added, they "continue to provide the same quality of care we always have, it's just a little bit more challenging."

Cruz has said "a small percentage" of staff left in response to a vaccine mandate implemented by Presbyterian Healthcare Services, which operates the Clovis hospital. He has declined to provide specific numbers, but a PRMC spokeswoman said recently that 97 percent of employees were either vaccinated or had qualified for an allowable exemption.

Shortages have been caused by multiple factors, Cruz said.

"The rigors of COVID do put a fair amount of stress on staff," he said. "After a period of time, this does weigh on some folks.

"If I were to describe the last two years, I would say it's been a roller coaster ride - lots of ups and downs, challenging in a lot of different ways.

"COVID is like nothing we've seen before" as far as sick patients' impact on staff. "I do worry about them for the future."

Cruz said he is "extremely proud of the way we have responded as a team in these tough times. But, I am also proud of (their) accomplishments. There is so much we have learned about each other and the capabilities of the hospital.

"So all-in-all during some really tough times, I think we stepped up to the plate and put forward some work that the community would be proud of."

Green also expressed pride in her staff performances during the pandemic.

"I am extremely proud of our staff at RGH who have risen to meet every expectation to take care of the patients in our community," she said.

"This (last) week we had a COVID walk-in clinic and served 130 to 165 patients a day," she said. They administered monoclonal antibody therapy to help the body's immune system. "The infusion takes two hours but it is really instrumental for keeping people out of the hospital," she said.