Lincoln County and Samaritan Health Systems opened two call centers this week to help answer questions and give advice to people with questions about the coronavirus pandemic.
The county’s call center number is 541-265-0621 and is staffed by a registered nurse, counselor and volunteers from 9 a.m. 1 p.m., with increasing hours as more volunteers become available. The phone line will be monitored 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays.
Samaritan Health Systems, which has two hospitals in Lincoln County, opened a call center – 541-451-7425 — that is open 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. seven days a week to answer questions from its patients and its hundreds of staff members. The Oregon Health Authority said Thursday that COVID-19 claimed one more life in the state, raising the death toll to 11. It also reported 50 new cases, bringing the state total to 316.
In Washington state, there were 627 newly confirmed cases Thursday, bringing the state total to 3,207 cases, including 147 deaths. The bulk of Washington’s cases remain in King County, which has seen 1,577 people fall ill and 109 die.
Sheriff coordinating equipment donations
The Lincoln County Sheriff’s emergency management department has taken over coordinating the donation of personal protective equipment in the area. Samaritan Health Systems, including Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital in Newport, stopped taking donated equipment Wednesday.
Face masks and other items are being requested as health care facilities grapple with an international supply-chain shortage as a result of COVID-19 response.
Emergency managers are asking businesses and non-health care industries, including construction, dental, veterinary, manufacturing, breweries, mining, logging, and commercial fisheries and the like to donate their any personal protective equipment. They are accepting disposable and reusable, unopened and opened, expired and not expired N95, surgical, and procedural marks, disposal gowns, exam gloves and eye protection goggles and eye shields.
The county said it will redistribute the supplies to area healthcare providers based on priority need. In south Lincoln County, the drop-off site is Central Oregon Coast Fire & Rescue in Waldport.
Samaritan says thanks for help
In announcing the end of it accepting donations, Corvallis-based Samaritan Health Systems said it had collected nine pallets of donated protective gear since last week.
“The response has been remarkable,” said Taylor Gilmour, assistant vice president of Samaritan Foundations said in a news release. “While we received donations of commercially-produced face masks, we also received a lot of homemade masks. The craft of sewing is alive and strong in Benton, Linn and Lincoln counties.”
In settings where face masks are not available, the CDC does allow for health care professionals to use homemade masks for care of patients with COVID-19 as a last resort. Samaritan’s strategy is to use standard medical gear first as it offers the best protection for health care professionals, especially those treating patients with COVID-19.
Homemade masks will be used if standard PPE supplies are depleted or will be used in care settings not requiring as stringent PPE use to free up available supplies in COVID-19 treatment areas.
Separately, Oregon State University announced Thursday that its faculty and employees collected more than 12 pallets of personal protective equipment, including nearly 200,000 pairs of gloves and more than 8,000 face masks. Donations came from the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, labs and facilities on the Corvallis campus, OSU-Cascades in Bend, the Food Innovation Center in Portland, experiment stations and OSU Extension offices.
Yachats adjusts utility work schedules
In Yachats, the city has adjusted work schedules of its water and wastewater plant managers to make sure public works operations continue without interruption. Without its own police or fire departments and all its buildings closed to the public, water and sewer are the city’s most vital daily services.
City Manager Shannon Beaucaire said wastewater plant supervisor Dave Buckwald is working an early morning shift with a two-hour overlap with water treatment plan supervisor Rick McClung, who is working later. Both McClung and Buckwald have trained others to do their work if they were unable to.
“We have backup plans and backup plans to the backup plan,” Beaucaire said. Should the city need it, additional water or wastewater help is available via the Oregon Association of Water Utilities.
The city has three other workers in the public works department. They are working on projects that they can do alone in order to adhere to “social distancing” directives.
With the virtual ban on visitors to the coast, McClung said water use in Yachats is down by a third from normal. The city plant can produce 400,000 gallons a day, he said, while consumption is currently about 180,000 gallons a day. Most motels, the city’s biggest users, have closed.
“It all happened so fast and suddenly, so we’re just focusing on the daily work,” McClung said. “We’re doing everything we can.”