HONOLULU – About two dozen federal nurses are expected to arrive on Oahu this week to provide assistance to the frontline caregivers at The Queen’s Medical Center (Queen’s) during this current COVID-19 surge.
The first group of nurses arrived at the Queen’s Punchbowl campus Tuesday for orientation. The nurses have been assigned to the Emergency Department, Medical Intensive Care Unit, and medical-surgical units caring for COVID patients.
In response to a request for staffing support by The Queen’s Health Systems’s President and CEO Jill Hoggard Green, PhD, RN, and The Queen’s Medical Center’s President and COVID-19 Incident Commander Jason Chang, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) gave notification last Friday that it would be deploying a medical team, consisting primarily of nurses, to Honolulu to provide some respite to the hard-working caregivers at Queen’s.
“We are extremely grateful for the federal government’s outstanding support, advocacy and aid,” said Green. “This team of nurses and administrative staff will provide essential and welcomed relief to our clinicians who have been caring for patients with COVID-19 with compassion, determination and courage. This rapid response to our request is a great example of how the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response within HHS is supporting the front line in the fight against this devastating disease.”
The team, consisting of nurses from the Veterans Health Administration and the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, will work on the front line at Queen’s for a period of two weeks.
