April 14, 2021
Community Update #15
Dear Community Member,
It’s hard to believe that my first email to the community about what BMH was doing to fight the COVID-19 pandemic was 11 months ago - almost to the day! Since that time we have seen many operational and safety changes at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital: changes to our visitor policy, moving departments to accommodate social distancing requirements, setting up a drive-thru testing clinic, and most recently, standing up a vaccine clinic that has seen thousands of community members come through for their vaccinations.
As of Friday, the BMH Vaccine Clinic has vaccinated 617 employees and 6,340 community members. These numbers are very impressive and encouraging! If you haven’t scheduled your vaccine appointment yet, I hope you will soon.
Governor Scott has provided new guidance regarding the Visitor Policy at VT Hospitals for people that are fully vaccinated. In response, we have updated our Visitor Policy which went into effect April 12. Fully vaccinated means two weeks past the 2nd dose of Pfizer or Moderna, or 2 weeks past the single dose of Johnson and Johnson and Johnson. In summary:
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Visitors who are vaccinated will be allowed in to visit inpatients or accompany a patient to an outpatient visit. You will have to show your vaccination card (or a picture of it) to the screener upon arrival.
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Unvaccinated visitors are not allowed in the hospital unless they are an Essential Support Person (ESP) and are here to assist with a patients care. (There is currently no change to the policy for people that are unvaccinated).
Also effective April 12, patients who are fully vaccinated no longer need to have pre-operative COVID testing.
We have posted a Vaccine Dashboard on the BMH website. It will be updated each Thursday to reflect the total number of first and second doses administered to date as well as the total number administered the previous week. The dashboard will also include the percentage of employees that have been vaccinated. Click here to view the dashboard.
Effective Monday, April 5th, all Short Stay Infusion services will now be delivered in the Oncology Unit. Patients have been contacted to discuss the new location. Patients will enter through the Richards Building and will present directly to the Oncology space.
Every three years we are required to complete a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA). The 2021 CHNA is underway and we are again working with the Brattleboro Retreat, Grace Cottage Hospital, VT Department of Health, and the VT Agency of Human Services to complete the assessment. Please take the brief survey to share what you consider the most pressing health care needs and concerns in our community. Click here to take the survey before May 15th.
While it has been a long year, the latest plan from Governor Scott of “Vermont Forward” gives us hope that our vaccination efforts will allow us to safely reopen and resume normalcy. Thank you to everyone for continuing to do your part in keeping our community as safe as possible
Thank you and stay well, Steve
