Department of Defense sending medical team to Sparrow Hospital

LANSING — The federal government will deploy a 25-person medical team to Sparrow Hospital in Lansing as it faces staffing shortages and rising COVID-19 cases. 

The State Department of Health and Human Services announced Monday that a Department of Defense medical team will be stationed at the hospital at the request of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Sparrow is the sixth Michigan hospital where Whitmer has requested a DOD team.

The team will begin Feb. 7 and stay for at least 30 days.

"Our health care professionals have been on the frontlines of the pandemic for nearly two years, and I urge Michiganders to do their part to keep themselves safe and help our hospitals," Whitmer said in the release.

Sparrow CEO and President James Dover said the areas in greatest need are the emergency department, intensive care unit and overflow wards.

The deployment could be extended if shortages persist. 

As of Jan. 19, Sparrow Health System had136 hospitalized patients. Of those, 65% were unvaccinated, 18% were partially vaccinated and 17% were fully vaccinated. 

There were 22 people in the intensive care unit, 20 of whom were unvaccinated. All 12 patients on ventilators were unvaccinated.

Dover said Michigan is facing a 30.51% test positivity rate as of Jan. 20, and he doesn't foresee relief until mid-February. This wave of the pandemic has proved especially challenging for caregivers as the omicron variant causes breakthrough infections in vaccinated health care workers. he said. 

"The challenges we have with COVID are now twofold: Not only with the volume of patients, but our staff are going out with COVID," Dover said.

Sparrow Health System currently has 135 caregivers out with COVID-19 — a problem exacerbated by flu season.

Katie Pontifex, a nurse and president of the union representing Sparrow care givers, said in a statement Monday that her colleagues are grateful for the federal support.

"The Professional Employee Council of Sparrow Hospital-MNA welcomes them to help assist with the burden of longstanding short staffing among registered nurses and healthcare professionals," Pontifex said. "We hope to work with Sparrow administration to ensure they are placed in the areas of greatest need."

She also challenged the hospital to work toward permanent solutions to staffing shortages.

"While the military help is great news in the short-term, it remains urgent that Sparrow follow practices and policies that will recruit and retain caregivers to address its ongoing staffing issues," she said.

Dover said the hospital has used agency staffers to supplement permanent employees and reassigned about 150 non-clinical workers, including managers.

"In terms of our recruiting efforts, we have done a lot to try and recruit from across the nation," he added. "Bringing staff in anywhere we can, in addition to providing what I would consider to be significant economic retention bonuses. We've also provided new special bonuses for our staff who work extra shifts, so we're pulling out all the stops."

Sparrow has encouraged patients to book virtual appointments when possible and administered monoclonal antibody treatment in appropriate cases.

"We're just asking, if the community really wants to help our staff and our hospitals, please choose to get vaccinated," Dover said. "Because then, we won't have to be seeing you so sick in the hospital. You might still get COVID, but you won't be so sick, you come in and die and it's been really hard on the staff."

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Contact reporter Krystal Nurse at (517) 267-1344 or knurse@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @KrystalRNurse.