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Medical strike teams arrive at WellSpan York Hospital to help with latest COVID surge

The team from DoD includes 4 doctors, 14 nurses, and two respiratory care professionals.

  • Julia Agos/WITF
YORK, Pa. – U.S. Air Force Capt. Edward Duffer, an intensive care nurse assigned to Joint Base San Antonio- Fort Sam Houston, Texas, confirms the settings on his patient’s continuous renal replacement therapy machine at the beginning of his shift while supporting COVID response operations at WellSpan Surgery and Rehabilitation Hospital in York, Pennsylvania, Jan. 2, 2022. U.S. Northern Command, through U.S. Army North, remains committed to providing flexible Department of Defense support to the whole-of-government COVID response.

 U.S. Army photo by Spc. Ashleigh Maxwell

YORK, Pa. – U.S. Air Force Capt. Edward Duffer, an intensive care nurse assigned to Joint Base San Antonio- Fort Sam Houston, Texas, confirms the settings on his patient’s continuous renal replacement therapy machine at the beginning of his shift while supporting COVID response operations at WellSpan Surgery and Rehabilitation Hospital in York, Pennsylvania, Jan. 2, 2022. U.S. Northern Command, through U.S. Army North, remains committed to providing flexible Department of Defense support to the whole-of-government COVID response.

(York) – The Department of Defense is sending medical strike teams to hospitals in the commonwealth that are overrun with COVID-19 patients.

WellSpan York is welcoming 23 military medical personal and administrators.

Eight WellSpan hospitals, located in Adams, Franklin, Lancaster, Lebanon and York Counties, are dealing with a record number of COVID-19 patients – 90 percent of whom are unvaccinated.

“We have 40 percent of your hospitalizations due to COVID-19. That’s an enormous, enormous burden,” said Dr. Anthony Aquilina, Executive Vice President and Chief Physician Officer at WellSpan Health.

The system is operating over capacity and has activated 200 of what it calls “flex beds.”

Patients are being put in stations normally used as pre- or post-operative bays or emergency department rooms.

Dr. Roxanna Gapstur, President and CEO of WellSpan Health, says the strike teams are filling in as needed with both COVID-19 and non-COVID patents.

“That allows us to potentially redeploy staff to other areas of our system, where they can be helpful as well. So, we have been moving our staff around from site to site as needed and based on the capacity issues at each of our hospitals and each of our clinics,” she said.

The team from DoD includes 4 doctors, 14 nurses, and two respiratory care professionals.

Lieutenant Colonel Scott Jensen, the officer in charge of the group, says their mission is scheduled to last 30 days.

“Because we are pulled from our duty station, most of us come from San Antonio, they try to limit that to blocks of time. There’s a reassessment throughout the time we’re here to see if we are needed for additional time. And I will say that given the stress that’s already being put on the hospital, we’ll have a look in probably about the next week and a half,” he said.

On Thursday, the state set a record with over 23,000 new daily confirmed cases of COVID-19.

The Wolf Administration is encouraging people to get vaccinated and boosted to help prevent more hospitalizations.

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