Upon entering the main entrance at Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center, just inside the sliding doors is the access point screening desk.
“Take off your glasses,” the woman at the desk says prior to swiping the temporal thermometer across a forehead.
“96.4, very good,” she says as the temperature is safely below the fever mark of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
This is the intake procedure at Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s become the “new normal.”
Inside the hospital, many things are different from before the pandemic hit New Mexico yet some things are operational again such as elective surgeries and the rehabilitation wing on the seventh floor converted back to its original use.
If a COVID-19-positive patient needs to be hospitalized, the patient is sent to Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces where that hospital has more resources to help the patient.
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In March, all elective surgeries were halted and the hospital went on lockdown.
A couple of months later, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham allowed hospitals to open back up gradually, as the state released revised guidelines on May 21 that required hospitals set capacity limits and require protective face masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) be worn by staff at all times.
If hospitals saw a sudden surge in COVID-19 cases, they were required to have a plan to reduce or cease elective or non-essential procedures.
“Office based procedures that are cosmetic and procedures that can be delayed for 90 days in patients without pain, disability or increased challenge to treat should be avoided at this time,” read the guidelines.
This spring, the lockdown meant that visitation was scaled back immensely and doctor’s visits were by telephone.
“We do allow some visitation but that is monitored very closely,” Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center Chief Executive Officer Jim Heckert said.
When elective surgeries were stopped, surgery went down 85 percent, physician visits went down by 50 percent as did emergency room patients, Heckert said.
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“This is very concerning to me,” Heckert said.
The concern was if people were afraid to go to hospital with COVID-19 going around.
“When, in fact, the hospital, with everything we’re doing, is probably safer than anywhere else,” Heckert said.
People were also delaying care which was causing problems.
“But that’s nationwide, that’s not unique to Gerald Champion,” Heckert said. “We’re really rigorous about providing the same environment to get care.”
The Emergency Department still has the separate entrance for those with COVID-19 symptoms.
As far as COVID-19 cases are concerned, Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center has seen 47 positive cases of 4,031 patients tested since April.
In Otero County, there are 120 positive cases, 10 deaths, 16 recovered and a total of 7,160 tests administered.
At Gerald champion Regional Medical Center, all emergency surgery patients, elective surgery and procedure patients are given a COVID-19 test.
The COVID-19-positive patients are monitored by Lourdes McDaniel, Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center Infection Control Nurse.
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McDaniel checks in with all of the COVID-19-positive patients until their test comes back negative.
Otero County has about 68,000 people and 120 people have tested positive for COVID-19. But there have only been a little more than 7,000 tests administered.
However, the upcoming flu season coupled with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic means that Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center is expecting a busy fall and winter.
“I don’t think this is going away soon,” Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center Chief of Medicine Bill Pollard said.
Nicole Maxwell can be contacted by email at [email protected], by phone at 575-415-6605 or on Twitter at @nicmaxreporter