Friday, March 24, 2023
Subscriber Login
My Profile
SpotlightNews
  • Home
  • News
    • Election 2022
    • Business
      • Spotlight On Business
      • Spotlight on Finance
    • Crime and Police
    • Discover-Towns
      • Discover Coeymans Selkirk and Feura Bush
      • Discover Delmar
      • Discover Glenmont
      • Discover Guilderland
      • Discover Latham and Boght
      • Discover Loudonville
      • Discover Menands
      • Discover Slingerlands
      • Discover Village of Colonie
      • Discover Voorheesville and New Scotland
    • Fire Departments
    • Government
    • Milestones
    • Schools
    • Sports
    • Obituaries
  • The Spot 518
    • Galleries
    • Art
    • Food and Recipes
    • Health & Fitness
    • Music
    • Theatre
  • Hot Spots Calendar
    • Calendar Listings
    • Submit Your Event
  • Opinion
    • Blogs
    • Our Opinion
    • Point of View
    • Your Opinion
  • Family Now
    • Parenting News
    • Senior News
  • Towns
    • Albany County
    • Bethlehem
    • Colonie
    • Guilderland
    • New Scotland
  • Classifieds
    • Employment – Hire Power
    • Services In the Spotlight
    • Classified Listings
    • Advertiser Login
  • Subscribe
    • Subscriber login
    • Give the gift of news
    • Join us – subscribe today
    • Newsletter sign up
    • Renew Subscription
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Election 2022
    • Business
      • Spotlight On Business
      • Spotlight on Finance
    • Crime and Police
    • Discover-Towns
      • Discover Coeymans Selkirk and Feura Bush
      • Discover Delmar
      • Discover Glenmont
      • Discover Guilderland
      • Discover Latham and Boght
      • Discover Loudonville
      • Discover Menands
      • Discover Slingerlands
      • Discover Village of Colonie
      • Discover Voorheesville and New Scotland
    • Fire Departments
    • Government
    • Milestones
    • Schools
    • Sports
    • Obituaries
  • The Spot 518
    • Galleries
    • Art
    • Food and Recipes
    • Health & Fitness
    • Music
    • Theatre
  • Hot Spots Calendar
    • Calendar Listings
    • Submit Your Event
  • Opinion
    • Blogs
    • Our Opinion
    • Point of View
    • Your Opinion
  • Family Now
    • Parenting News
    • Senior News
  • Towns
    • Albany County
    • Bethlehem
    • Colonie
    • Guilderland
    • New Scotland
  • Classifieds
    • Employment – Hire Power
    • Services In the Spotlight
    • Classified Listings
    • Advertiser Login
  • Subscribe
    • Subscriber login
    • Give the gift of news
    • Join us – subscribe today
    • Newsletter sign up
    • Renew Subscription
No Result
View All Result
Spotlight News
No Result
View All Result
Home News Covid-19 Updates

Capital District hospitals cannot do elective surgery; 5,600 hospital workers furloughed across upstate

Jim Franco by Jim Franco
April 28, 2020
in Covid-19 Updates, News
Reading Time: 3 mins read

SYRACUSE – Hospitals in the Capital District will not be allowed to do elective surgery, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, because they do not meet the arbitrary 30 percent bed availability requirement.

Since the statewide ban on elected surgery went into effect, Dr. Ferdinand Venditti, the system director at Albany Medical Center Hospital, said there have been 5,600 workers furloughed across the Iroquois Healthcare Association, a conglomerate of some 27 upstate hospitals.

Spotlight Newspapers continues to provide coronavirus related news updates beyond our paywall in the best interest of our community. We ask that if you are able to support our efforts that you please consider buying a subscription by clicking here.

Last week, Cuomo said he would allow elective surgeries, a big portion of revenue for hospitals and what can be a positive life altering event for patients, in some counties in upstate with the notable exceptions of Albany and Rensselaer. That ban is expanded to include most counties in the Capital District.

But on Tuesday, April, 28 he outlined a 12-point plan to reopening regions of New York and expanded the restrictions to regions rather than individual counties and said hospitals across the Capital District do not meet the threshold. Part of that is hospitals in that particular region have a capacity of at least 30 percent available. Others include a decrease in hospitalizations for at least two weeks, a testing regime with “tracers” to track where an infected person had been and who that person came into contact with, isolation facilities where infected people can go and recover and a regional “control room” to monitor the impact of reopening.

At Albany Medical Center, there are some 300 employees on what is called “standby leave,” said Albany Med President and CEO Dennis McKenna during a video posted on the hospital website.

Those employees are, for the time being, getting full pay and benefits for staying home and essentially on call and ready to come back to work on 24-hour notice. The employees will be rotated in and out of the program, and are encouraged to volunteer while not working, he said.

“We know furloughing employees is not an easy decision and we have not had to furlough any at this time,” McKenna said.

St. Peters Health Partners, which operates St. Peter’s and Albany Memorial Hospital in Albany and Samaritan Hospital in Troy, have furloughed a number of employees as part of a 10 percent workforce reduction across its massive parent company, Trinity Health.

Glens Falls Hospital has furloughed 337 employees.

“We don’t want to run into a situation where hospitals say they can’t take any COVID patients because we have beds filled with elective surgery,” he said during his daily briefing at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse.

While Central New York hospitals can begin elective surgeries, Western New York and the Capital District, which is comprised of eight counties — Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady, Green, Columbia, Washington and Warren — still do not meet the 70 percent bed capacity, Cuomo said.

Upstate hospitals were taking COVID patients from the harder hit areas of downstate but that flow has slowed. Venditti said there are currently 58 COVID patients at Albany Med with 20 in the ICU and eight on a ventilator, down from a high of 36 people on a ventilator a few weeks ago when patients were coming up from New York City.

Since Friday, 12 patients were admitted to the hospital with COVID and three were discharged.

“The numbers we see today is what is happening in this region,” McKenna said.

At the onset of the pandemic, nearly two months ago, Cuomo banned elective surgeries to increase bed capacity by 50 percent at all hospitals across the state to prepare for an expected deluge of COVID-19 patients. That never occurred.

While downstate hospitals were overwhelmed at the peak of the pandemic, the USS Comfort, a travelling Navy hospital ship, was used sparingly and the 1,000-bed field hospital at the Javits Center saw a maximum of 435 patients at one time. There were at least three other field hospitals constructed in New York City and other downstate areas hardest hit by the pandemic.

Meanwhile, statewide, the number of hospitalizations, the three-day average of hospitalizations and the number of people on a ventilator continue to decline. The number of fatalities reports on Tuesday was 333, bringing the statewide total to nearly 22,700 with the majority coming from New York City, Long Island and Westchester and Rockland counties.

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: covid-19
ShareTweetShareShare
Previous Post

Colonie Spotlight area essential services: April 28, 2020

Next Post

City Council voids Cohoes Music Hall, Park Playhouse contracts

Leave Comment

Stay Connected with Us

Recent News

Four remain in Madness

March 24, 2023

Players named for Eddies HOF ceremony

March 24, 2023

Revolution Hall hosting the 9th Annual Dustin Mele Memorial Concert on Saturday

March 24, 2023

Woman on the move

March 24, 2023

Hot Stories This Week

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest

Colonie Area Weekly Police Blotter March 8th – March 15th

March 19, 2023

Bethlehem Area Weekly Police Blotter March 8th – March 15th

March 18, 2023

Hamlet’s first family’s home up for sale

March 22, 2023

A ‘wicked good time’ coming to Xgates

September 2, 2022

Four remain in Madness

March 24, 2023

Players named for Eddies HOF ceremony

March 24, 2023

Revolution Hall hosting the 9th Annual Dustin Mele Memorial Concert on Saturday

March 24, 2023

Woman on the move

March 24, 2023
Spotlight News

Spotlight News, The Spot 518 and Capital District Family Now are divisions of Community Media Group, LLC. Our local offices are located at 341 Delaware Ave, Delmar, NY 12054. You can contact us at 518.439.4949.

Browse

Follow Us

  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact the Editor
  • Employment
  • Our Team
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Legal Notices Portal

© 2022 Community Media Group, LLC - 341 Delaware Ave. Delmar, NY 12054. 518.439.4949

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Election 2022
  • News
    • Crime and Police
    • Fire Departments
    • Milestones
    • Real Estate and Housing
    • Schools
    • Sports
    • Spotlight On Business
    • Spotlight on Finance
  • The Spot 518
    • Galleries
    • Art
    • Theatre
    • Music
    • Food and Drink
    • Health & Fitness
  • Hot Spots Calendar
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Opinion
  • Classifieds
    • Advertiser Login
    • Service Directory
    • Hire Power – Employer Spotlight
  • Capital District Family Now
    • Parenting News
    • Senior News
  • Towns
    • Albany County
    • Bethlehem
    • Colonie
    • Guilderland
  • Log In
  • Subscribe

© 2022 Community Media Group, LLC - 341 Delaware Ave. Delmar, NY 12054. 518.439.4949