MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa — Marshall County is one of the hardest-hit areas in the state of Iowa for COVID-19.
A total of 647 people have contracted the virus, and two have died.
What are things like for the only hospital in the county?
Dr. Lance VanGundy spoke with Local 5's Jack Miller about UnityPoint Health in Marshalltown.
Local 5: Tell us about the situation at the only hospital in the county.
Dr. Lance VanGundy: Yeah, I don't know if the boat we're rowing in is any different than any of the other hospitals across the nation, our volume certainly doesn't compare to New York.
But the health care environment ... battling coronavirus is challenging for all of us. There's a steep learning curve figuring out how to protect your staff and yourselves, how to still take care of all the normal emergencies that come in.
But then some of the algorithms for what you might normally think of about how to take care of people see might seem turned upside down for coronavirus patients.
You know ... example of just how rapidly: what would be a young healthy person might suddenly become ill, sort of defies your logical understanding of how normal heart, lung disease, work. So we're adjusting like everybody else.
We have great support with the UnityPoint system, and all of the hospital systems in central Iowa. So even though sometimes the acuity of our burden might be a lot for our small community hospital we've been able to have good, coordinated care with the other hospitals in our system and that certainly has helped.
Local 5: In terms of staffing, beds and personal protective equipment (PPE) and those types of issues at the hospital, have you experienced any difficulties at this point?
Dr. VanGundy: I think challenges would be the right word. You know, the one thing Iowa has benefited from is being somewhat of a rural state that's not as densely populated.
We had a little bit more time to learn from the experience of our partners in health care in other parts of the country. So we had time to assess what are our needs for PPE, how do we strategically think about staffing and that delay of even just a few weeks is incredibly helpful.
Behind the scenes, our administration clearly has been working hard to not only stabilize our availability of PPE but also think creatively about staffing.
I know one of the things that UnityPoint is looking into doing if we have to as an example would be to disaster credential: Any ER provider to go work at any ERs that might be getting hit.
So for example, if Fort Dodge all of a sudden had a massive influx of patients, but Marshalltown was stable then maybe some of our providers could go help out there. That type of goodwill across the system has been well organized mostly because we've had time to strategize.
Local 5: How about testing components? There are so many people in the realm of deciding who gets tested and when they get tested.
Do you feel like testing in and around Marshalltown has been adequate?
Dr. VanGundy: It's a frustrating question. I think we're all trying to all diligently follow the CDC guidelines, but if we speak honestly, no.
Across America there's not enough testing. We labor and stress with those decisions just like patients do about whether to come in.
So we're trying to still, you know, test people who are definitely symptomatic and have risks and exposures, the people who are obvious high risk.
I can review that list for you if you'd like, but we don't have the availability of testing that we do per se, or rapid strep test or influenza test. But we've also been wrestling with those diseases for several decades, and we're good at taking care of them identifying them.
And coronavirus has really only been on our shores for three months so I think we have to answer that question with a little bit of grace and forgiveness to the medical system as a whole.
Just knowing that we, we haven't had enough time to become experts at this in terms of taking care of it. So could we use more time? Absolutely.
Watch more Local 5 COVID-19 coverage on YouTube: