A16
NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
Huffman’s Select Market Manager Rebecca Camarena helps a customer load her car.
Normal
Continued from Page A1
Huffman’s
manager,
Rebecca Camarena said
the store’s supplier said
people tend to hoard
necessities like toilet
paper to maintain a sense
of control during uncertain
times.
Huffman said Prairie
City is dense with senior
citizens, a vulnerable pop-
ulation susceptible to con-
tracting the virus.
At Chester’s, Manager
Deziree Chobo said their
provider has been one to
two days behind on mak-
ing deliveries, but unlike
Huffman’s Market, they
are not limiting customers
on the quantities of items
like toilet paper that they
can purchase.
Chobo said one week
after a meeting with
local government and
Virus
Continued from Page A1
Some hospitals are storing
used masks in bags or bins
until the coronavirus no
longer is considered viable
and then reusing the masks.
Irene Hunt of Springfield
said she and other home-
care workers have not
Rebecca
Camarena
Deziree
Chobo
Robert
Hunt
Bill
Wyllie
health care officials at
Blue Mountain Hospi-
tal, they have not been
able to catch up with the
run on products like toilet
paper, hand sanitizer and
flour.
Chobo, who lives with
a family member with a
compromised
immune
system, said the rule at
home is to wash hands and
change clothes when she
gets home from work.
At Len’s Drug, owner
Greg Armstrong said, so
far, every one of his staff
is staying healthy, and for
that he is grateful.
Armstrong said the
Subway store next door,
which he owns, and Len’s
are down roughly $2,000
in sales.
Armstrong said he attri-
butes the dip in sales at the
pharmacy to health care
providers limiting routine
patient appointments.
Armstrong said he is
seeing an uptick in over-
the-counter
respiratory
drugs, and so far, he has
not had to allocate the
amount that he can sell
to each customer at one
time.
He said he continues to
hope we see less cases in
the future.
Empty shelves at Chester’s Thriftway on Tuesday.
been provided with masks,
gowns or other protective
equipment. Neither can
they find them in stores to
buy on their own. They also
worry about running out of
gloves.
She has used a home-
made mask, provided by
her church, in an attempt
to protect both herself and
her clients. Worried about
becoming infected, she has
sent her daughter to tempo-
rarily live with a relative.
A Fred Meyer worker
in Salem said many cus-
tomers violate social dis-
tancing requirements and
don’t cover their coughs or
sneezes.
Rick Miller, head of the
Avamere group of nurs-
ing homes and other care
facilities, said his employ-
ees have resorted to using
bandanas as face masks and
wearing ponchos or over-
size men’s shirts as gowns.
Sen. Jeff Merkley noted
that Oregon has quickly
gone from averaging 10
new cases a day to over 60.
On Monday, the Oregon
Health Authority reported
58 new cases and three
more deaths, bringing the
state’s death toll to 16. The
three patients who died
Hospital
Continued from Page A1
She said the number of test-
ing kits can change by the day,
depending on the usage and what
gets shipped out to the nursing
homes.
Lindsay said that Community
Counseling Solutions operates
the Rural Health Clinic, which
has tests and PPE. She said the
health department does not do
the lab work itself.
“We just receive positive
results,” she said.
Rebekah Rand, director of
Emergency Medical Services at
BMH, said the hospital is inven-
torying its supply of PPE.
Rand said the worldwide
shortage of PPE has put a strain
on health care workers, but
recently the Little Canyon Food
Cart donated boxes of gloves
and community member Phillip
Wirth donated N95 masks.
Rand said anyone looking to
donate gloves or masks could
reach her at 541-575-4159. Also,
anyone interested in helping pro-
duce masks can email Sylvia
Ross at sross@bluemountain-
hospital.org.
BMH CEO Derek Daly said,
in preparation of getting more
COVID-19 cases, the hospi-
tal has set up a tent in the Emer-
gency Department parking lot.
“The tent will be used as an
extension of the Emergency
Room to triage patients having
respiratory symptoms from those
seeking other medical needs,”
said Daly.
Daly said the tent also allows
the hospital staff to practice drills
if there is an influx of emergency
room patients.
Daly said the hospital, classi-
fied as a critical access hospital,
is mandated to have 25 beds or
less available.
“Typically, we have five or
six patients in house daily,” Daly
said.
Daly said, over the last week,
the hospital and the emergency
room had seen less than regular
averages in the emergency room.
“People seem to be hearing
the messaging going out and
about,” he said. “When in doubt,
stay home.”
Something About Mary
The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
Sunday were men in their
80s and 90s with underly-
ing medical conditions.
Gov. Brown said Oregon
has received 25% to 40% of
the PPE requested from the
federal government.
Phelps, the director of the
Office of Emergency Man-
agement, said in a video
press conference later Mon-
day that the state was buy-
ing all the PPE it can find.
That included 135,000 N95
masks and 300,000 surgi-
cal masks being processed
this week for distribution
around Oregon. Hundreds
of thousands more will be
needed.
“We’re expecting this
pandemic to last for a
very long time,” he said.
“We’re in the first mile
of what’s going to be a
marathon.”
The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
A greeter is prepared at the Emergency Room entrance at the Blue Mountain Hospital.
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