Categories: News

Community Leaders Encourage Oregonians to Support Healthcare Workers

Portland, OR. Oregon has had eight consecutive weeks of increasing hospitalization rates from COVID-19. State leaders say professionals on the front line are feeling the stress. It’s not just doctors and nurses who are feeling the stress, it’s all of those who keep the hospitals running, like janitors, security staff, cafeteria personnel, and those who greet the public.

Oregon COVID-19 hospitalizations rates are soaring.

Supporting those in your community who are working through the pandemic is easy to do with a phone call, offering a meal, or assistance in any other way.

In addition to reaching out and personally offering help to healthcare workers, Hospital administrators are asking members of the public to do the following:

Providence and local emergency rooms have a unified message as the COVID surge escalates. Help us help you. We need our ERs to take care of those with emergency and critical health needs – not vaccinations or COVID tests. If you need immediate help, call 9-1-1. For all other care, get the right care at the right time: COVID testing, COVID vaccination, other more minor health needs don’t belong in the ER.

Get vaccinated: https://www.vaccines.gov/

Get tested: https://my.castlighthealth.com/corona-virus-testing-sites/

To get a sense of what’s happening on the front lines, this is a message Jennifer Gentry is an R.N. and the Chief Nursing Officer at Providence Oregon offered her staff:

A special message to our nurses, providers, and caregivers:
You are enough. I know what your work conditions are. And what you are doing is magnificent. It is selfless and it is enough. More than enough.

We will pace ourselves and together we will see this through. We are innovative, purposeful, and caring. We do our best to care for ourselves and we do our best to care for our community.

We do our best and it is enough. We go home knowing we were enough as we leave our work on our doorsteps. We cherish our time with our families and friends.

I have a favor to ask. Let’s all remember that we are enough. We are doing enough. Nurses, caregivers, providers do not need to be more or do more, only adapt to our new reality. There is no more to give because you are already doing your best.

Pace yourself. The work is in front of us. And we will do our best. We know that we are enough.

According to the State of Oregon, we can also do more by getting ourselves and our families vaccinated and helping others who may be vaccine-hesitant to understand the urgent need to protect themselves, their loved ones, and their communities. Doing our best to avoid needing a scarce hospital bed is the best way to thank frontline workers. Please offer your appreciation for the heroic efforts of health care workers by getting vaccinated, wearing masks, physically distancing, and being kind to one another.

Find more information and to find a vaccine site near you visit our Find a COVID-19 Vaccine in Oregon web page.

Elisa Klein

I’ve been a professional journalist and writer since 1987, (and long-time reporter for KOIN-TV.) As a nationally published reporter, with a Master’s Degree in Journalism, I love to report positive news and information. Journalism has also connected me with another non-profit where I served as a leader; the Northwest’s biggest writer’s organization: The Willamette Writers.