WA DOH Asks Retirees, Volunteers To Help Fill Staffing Shortages

OLYMPIA, WA — The Washington State Department of Health is joining Gov. Jay Inslee in calling on the federal government to provide more resources to struggling local hospitals. At the same time, the DOH is also requesting licensed health care providers across Washington who are not currently practicing, including the recently -retired, to consider volunteering their time.

The call for outside aid began Monday, when Gov. Jay Inslee issued a public letter to federal COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients, saying Washington's health care system was currently "at or beyond capacity" and that additional staff would need to be shipped in to care for the growing number of COVID-19 patients.

Now, the state Department of Health confirms that, in alignment with Inslee's request, it has also officially requested Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra for additional medical staff and other resources to support the state's overwhelmed hospitals and long-term care facilities.

“We know that COVID-19 patients, those seeking care for other medical reasons, along with staff shortages, have all put stress on our current hospital system," said Secretary of Health Dr. Umair Shah in a written statement. "DOH is seeking additional federal resources to support our healthcare providers and remains hopeful that the federal government will support our community through this difficult time.”

In the past, the Washington State Department of Health had requested the assistance of 1,200 clinical and non-clinical staff through FEMA, but Inslee says that further assistance will be "of significant value in Washington" as the state fights the current, fifth wave of infections driven by the delta variant.

Meanwhile, the DOH has also put out a notice seeking licensed health care practitioners and retired medical professionals to consider volunteering to support understaffed hospitals and vaccination programs. Licensed healthcare providers from out-of-state can even register as emergency volunteers, which grants them the right to practice without obtaining a Washington license. Meanwhile, retired medical professionals can volunteer to administer COVID-19 vaccines.

The call for volunteers may seem strange, but desperate times call for desperate measures, the DOH says.

“At the state level, we have taken aggressive steps to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 and to support our healthcare system,” said Shah.

As hospitalization rates swelled near the start of the month, the DOH began shuffling staff to the hospitals with the greatest need, in an effort to prevent a "crisis standards of care situation" — a situation in which hospitals become so overwhelmed, they need to begin rationing care to patients most likely to survive. The DOH's current call for help from volunteers and from the federal government is part of the state's continual effort to avoid that kind of situation.

Crisis standards of care have been declared in parts of Idaho, Montana, and Alaska. In Idaho, the situation has deteriorated so badly that some patients have been lifted — or have crossed the border themselves — into Eastern Washington, which in turn has caused those hospitals further stress and strain.

"Caring for people who are coming across the border is causing people in Washington to not get the care that they need," said Washington State Hospital Association President and CEO Cassie Sauer at a conference Monday.

The silver lining is that, while hospitals are struggling to handle the influx of COVID-19 patients, the number of new infections appears to be on the decline. Washington went from 1,673 hospitalized COVID-19 patients last Monday, to 1504 hospitalizations at the start of this week.

"We really think Washingtonians are taking this very seriously," Sauer said. "We've seen an increase in the vaccination rates, the governor's order on masking, some of the county actions like the vaccine verification that's happening in a number of counties."