Wesley will stop many visitors, start taking visible preparations for coronavirus

Wesley Medical Center will start taking more visible preparations to prepare for the worst-case scenario with the new coronavirus, COVID-19, and will stop allowing visitors in certain areas of the hospital, CEO Bill Voloch said during a news conference Saturday.

Starting at noon Monday, Wesley will stop allowing visitors to the intensive care unit and acute care areas, which together account for roughly half of it patients, Voloch said. In addition, the preparations could include using a tent to run drills outside of the emergency room and light construction to put in additional hospital beds.

“Not to alarm any of the public, but I, like everyone else, am not sure what is going to happen,” Voloch said. “And so we at Wesley Healthcare just want to make sure that we are preparing for wherever this crisis may go in the coming weeks and months.”

Other announcements from Saturday:

▪ Employees were sent home with letters that would allow them to travel to and from home and the hospital in case governments restrict travel. Voloch said Wesley’s parent company, HCA Healthcare, has 190 hospitals across the country that gave employees similar letter as a precaution.

“That is a common practice in our company to do that when we think that there is a possibility of there being some sort of a quarantine,” Voloch said.

▪ Voloch also said Wesley is trying to conserve medical masks.

“At this point, we are OK but need to conserve our (masks) wherever possible right now, and so we’re taking steps to do just that,” Voloch said. “I think that anytime you have demand that is significantly greater than supply there is always that possibility (of running out). That’s a concern of every hospital in the country, not just Wesley.”

▪ Employees have been refused service at area businesses. Voloch said his employees have had some “not very nice behavior in our community toward them.” Voloch said he thinks what is behind the sentiment is that people believe hospital employees are more likely to interact with infected people and spread the virus into the community.

“We currently have one patient in our hospital,” Voloch said. “It’s not rampant here at Wesley.”

Sedgwick County has one confirmed case of COVID-19, which was announced Thursday. According to health officials, Kansas has 45 confirmed cases as of early Saturday afternoon.

This story was originally published March 21, 2020 at 12:32 PM.