Officials at the Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center spoke on Tuesday about the lack of COVID-19 testing in the workplace after a deadly outbreak in the hospital’s emergency department.
At least 60 hospital employees have tested positive since the outbreak on Christmas Day, including one who died, Kaiser said on Tuesday. Several nurses in the emergency room told the NBC Bay Area that they feel that if Kaiser had done routine testing of the team in recent months, this could have prevented such an outbreak.
“I feel that this could have been avoided or actually minimized if the test had been done earlier,” said an official.
On Christmas Day, an employee wearing an air-powered tree costume walked the halls of the hospital’s emergency department. Kaiser said the costume “probably” is responsible for the employees who took COVID-19, including a registry worker who died on Sunday.
Some nurses said they feel that the employee who wore the costume has become a scapegoat. They also said that before the outbreak, they were not tested regularly.
Kaiser said that before the outbreak followed the order of Santa Clara County and in a statement added: “Although the order states that healthcare professionals can ask workers to wait up to 14 days between tests, we are offering it to our healthcare professionals to be tested weekly if you want. “
Kaiser’s nurses said the hospital did not facilitate testing as some other hospitals are doing.
Since October, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, O’Connor Hospital and St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy have been testing employees who work directly with patients every two weeks. Is required.
Juana Castillo, who works with Enterprise Employee Health at all three hospitals, said being proactive and consistent with the tests was worth it.
“We have a very low rate of positivity based on our asymptomatic tests of our employees,” she said.
Kaiser said it is testing all emergency department employees as part of the outbreak investigation.