Asante, Providence to begin vaccinating medical staff for COVID-19 on Friday
Asante is among the first healthcare providers in the state to receive some of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccines, but doses are extremely limited.
Posted: Dec 17, 2020 12:01 PM
Updated: Dec 18, 2020 10:25 AM
Posted By: Jamie Parfitt
MEDFORD, Ore. Asante is one of the first healthcare providers in the state of Oregon to received a shipment of Pfizer s coronavirus vaccine, but doses will be extremely limited for the near future.
Several administrators from Asante held a briefing with members of the press on Thursday, as Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center prepares to begin its first vaccinations for healthcare workers on Friday.
RV park provides shelter for Asante employees displaced by fires
The Asante Employee RV Park is providing shelter for those displaced by the Almeda and Obenchain Fires.
Posted: Dec 15, 2020 7:57 PM
Updated: Dec 15, 2020 8:20 PM
Posted By: Jayda McClendon
MEDFORD, Ore. The Asante Employee RV Park is providing shelter for those displaced by the Almeda and Obenchain Fires.
Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center spokesperson Lauren Van Sickle says about 80 employees lost their homes after the fires.
“By opening the RV park, it gave them a space that they can go where it was safe and kind of on their own again, Van Sickle said.
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The first COVID-19 vaccines have arrived in Oregon and California. Most local hospitals expect their first batch sometime this week.
About 327,000 doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine have reportedly arrived in California. According to the Oregon Health Authority, over 35,000 doses are being distributed to hospitals across Oregon.
Frontline workers and residents of long-term care facilities in both states are first in line to get the vaccine.
Dr. Jim Shames is Jackson County s medical director.
“The plan is that these very cold storage vaccines are going to go to some of our hospitals who have the capacity to receive them and they are going to turn around and vaccinate their staff the people on the front lines with the first doses that come in,” Shames says.
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In the Portland metro area, Central Oregon and Southern Oregon, hospitals are struggling with a surge of seriously ill COVID-19 patients, and bracing for the possibility of even higher numbers.
For months, Oregon seemed to be a national outlier, spared the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But in the past several weeks, a surge in seriously ill COVID-19 patients has arrived in emergency rooms from Portland to Medford to Bend, pushing hospital bed occupancy in some regions towards 90% and straining the health system.
“For much of the last four months, we were oscillating between roughly two and eight patients requiring hospitalization with COVID-19 disease. Today we have 49 patients,” said Dr. Jeff Absalon, the chief physician executive for the St. Charles Health System, which operates four hospitals in the Bend region.