Rhode Island's 2 Field Hospitals Open, Accepting Patients

CRANSTON, RI — Rhode Island's two coronavirus field hospitals are up and running, Gov. Gina Raimondo confirmed Thursday. While, combined, they add around 900 more hospital beds, the state is facing a massive staffing shortage and could not currently meet that demand, she said.

The Cranston site accepted its first patients Monday, taking in seven people on the first day. Around 20 more are expected to arrive in the coming days. Providence, meanwhile, opened the following day with 21 patients, and around 40 more to come.

Although the facilities are colloquially referred to as "field hospitals," they are on par with the existing hospitals in the state, providing the same quality of care, Raimondo said. Anyone who is a patient themselves or knows someone in one of these facilities should not be concerned about substandard care, she said.

"The quality of our field hospitals is about as good as it gets," Raimondo said.

While the field hospitals provide extra beds for COVID-19 patients, staffing these facilities is an ongoing issue. At this time, there would be no way to effectively staff the field hospitals if they were at capacity, Raimondo said, due to a number of factors. Unlike in the spring, coronavirus cases are spiking across the country, meaning there are fewer out-of-state health care workers available to help meet the demand. In addition, we're now nine months into the pandemic, and existing health care workers have worked for months, often without a break.

“Healthcare workers are human beings," Raimondo said. "Every nurse and doctor, physical therapist, mental health professional, certified nurse assistant, these are mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, these people have been working for nine months without a break under incredible stress. They are tired, they are exhausted, they are strained. So I would just say they deserve our support."

To help combat this shortage, Raimondo issued a call to all health care workers who are able to step up and join the effort.

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