The Chatham-Kent Health Alliance has seen an increase in the number of sick days taken by staff so far this year compared to last year.
CKHA said sick days in April jumped by 33 per cent compared to the same period a year ago.
Board Chair Greg Aarssen reported to the media on Monday through a conference call that the jump in staff sick days was understandable and was likely due to mental and physical fatigue caused by battling COVID-19. However, Aarssen said staff welfare is good with good morale, good health, and good spirits at the hospital.
"It's not something to be concerned about," said Aarssen. "The team management and the board are super aware of the health and wellness [of staff]."
Aarssen told reporters the hospital continues to look for ways to support staff because their mental and physical health is paramount. He said although the Chatham hospital has not been hammered with COVID-19 cases like other places, the uncertainty of not knowing if and when they would get infected made staff anxious as they went to work every day.
CEO Lori Marshall said there have been no staff shortages and proper staffing levels have been maintained throughout the pandemic.
Marshall said a handful of staff are still staying at houses owned by the hospital because they don't want to risk bringing the virus home to their families. She added there is less demand but the houses are still available.
Marshall also said the supply of personal protection equipment at the hospital is currently 30 days or more and that's with the start of elective surgeries on June 1 factored in. She added the shortest supply of PPE at the hospital since the COVID-19 pandemic started in mid-March was about two weeks for masks.
Marshall said no hospital staff have been infected by COVID-19 over the past 11 weeks.
Marshall admitted there have been some lessons learned along the way. She said overall communication with staff to relay the risk posed by the virus and the possibility they could spread it at home was good but could have been better.
"We can't over-communicate at a time like this. That would be something that we would always want to do more of," said Marshall.
She added many actions the hospital took to battle the virus, such as moving patients around to increase hospital capacity and redeploying staff to help long term care homes, were quite successful.
"I am very proud of the response that we have been able to provide through this," she added. "We have been able to respond to every need that presented itself at the different stages."
Marshall concluded by saying that Chatham-Kent's overall success in handling COVID-19 and its low number of cases could perhaps serve as a model for rural areas across the country to show them how to fight a future pandemic.
"We need to be documenting the actions that we've taken through all of this because we think it has been successful as a community and perhaps we create the playbook for rural settings in terms of how to respond in the event we're faced with something similar in the future," Marshall said.