Hospital staff goes above and beyond during the storm

Mark Turner, CEO of Mountains Community Hospital, shared this message on March 10.

We are on Day 16 of the state of emergency caused by the recent winter storms and are finally transitioning into recovery mode. More staff can get to and from the hospital, more discharged patients can get home and we have plenty of food and medical supplies.
We’ve remained fully operational throughout this time because of the staff members who came to work during the beginning days of the storm and didn’t leave.
Here are just a few of the ways they went above and beyond: working 48-hour shifts; caring for an average of 32 patients and residents a day over the past two weeks with hardly any relief; housing and feeding around five discharged patients who couldn’t get home; endlessly shoveling our parking lot and helipad to keep the areas clear for emergencies and transports; hiking and even skiing in to work; driving all over the treacherous mountain roads to bring staff and physicians in and trying to get patients home; staying in constant contact with the county, Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Station, state officials, CHP, Caltrans, our vendors, etc., and doing everything we could to advocate for more resources and more plows; coordinating 15 air supply drops with CalDART and other community members to help in the efforts to get food and supplies to the community as quickly as possible.
Their sacrifices are tremendous, and I know they are exhausted. I will share their names at a later date. We are preparing for the rain and doing our best to mitigate any leaks or flooding that may occur.
We aren’t back to normal operations, but we are improving every day