Since COVID-19 hit Delaware, generous donors have given more than $3 million to assist Bayhealth in the fight against the virus.
Treating patients remotely through telehealth became a necessity. We’ve gone from doing almost no remote patient visits to doing thousands over the past year, including for someone 99 years of age. Bayhealth utilized $1.753 million of donor support to purchase equipment and train our staff in the use of telehealth. Included in that amount were also tablets that patients used to stay in touch with their loved ones when visitation wasn’t allowed. Additionally, monitors and webcams were purchased and installed so that nursing staff could continuously monitor our sickest patients.
Your support allowed Bayhealth to purchase $327,000 in personal protective equipment (PPE) so that our caregivers could safely treat patients. These expenditures included reusable isolation gowns, medical supplies, bed rentals, air purifying respirators and hoods and UV sanitizers.
COVID-19 has impacted our staff in a variety of ways. To lend a hand, about $83,000 was spent to provide:
- Grocery store gift cards to our employees with partners who lost their jobs due to the pandemic
- Meals and treats for staff at both of our hospitals and most of our off-site locations
- Code Lavender resources that provided caregivers with a mobile calming and
meditative environment - Expanded childcare services as Bayhealth staff were impacted by the closure of their previous providers when care centers closed.
To address the issues of COVID-19 testing and vaccination, as well as mobile care for other necessities such as cancer screening, Bayhealth is using grant funds of $400,000 to purchase a new fully equipped medical RV that will hit the road in 2022. Much of the unit’s work will be to deliver free preventative care in communities that include rural, lower-income and minority areas where there are barriers to healthcare.
Bayhealth needed more safety and security hands on deck at our hospitals to help with patient and visitor check-in. Your support helped us bolster our team during the time frame when Bayhealth was seeing far more COVID-19 cases than any other hospital system in lower Delaware.
We hope that the dawn of 2022 sees an end to our hardest fight against COVID-19. Whether or not that proves to be the case, Bayhealth will continue to bring outstanding healthcare to everyone in our region.
If you have any questions, please contact the Bayhealth Foundation office at 302-744-7015.