Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Beaumont Hospital, Wayne is important to Beaumont Health and is not permanently closing. Rumors to that effect are false. Yesterday, the few remaining patients at Wayne were safely discharged home or transferred to other hospitals. The hospital is now temporarily paused and not serving any patients. Most staff is being redeployed to other Beaumont sites where they can provide care for more patients. Others will be temporarily laid off and could potentially participate in enhanced state/federal unemployment programs.
As the surge was expected to occur just a couple of weeks ago, Beaumont received approval from the state to designate Wayne as a COVID-19 only hospital. Fortunately, the surge was more moderated, likely due to aggressive social distancing, the stay at home order and other factors mitigating the spread of the disease.
However, we are still operating under several executive orders that severely restrict the extent and type of care we can provide to our community. Until these executive orders are lifted and the disaster declaration has ended, we are not changing the COVID-19 only status of the Wayne hospital. This is in preparation for a second surge that could occur after the stay at home restrictions end. The pandemic remains very unpredictable. Beaumont Health is committed to responding to potential ongoing COVID-19 surges by relying upon our Wayne hospital and other resources.
As the last two weeks have shown, predictive models are estimates and lack the specificity to make accurate decisions, even a month in advance. Non-COVID-19 patient volume has reduced across the system, but the COVID-19 patient volume remains high. Beaumont is committed to reopening Beaumont, Wayne and making sure the services provided there both meet the community’s needs and fit within our system’s overall strategic plan. However, we will only do that when it is safe to do so and when we have more clarity about the pandemic.