As hospitals across the state make masks optional for patients and staff for the first time in three years, health care leaders feel confident this is a step on the road back to normalcy despite some lingering hesitancy among providers.
Lifespan Corp. and Care New England Health System both made masking optional starting at the beginning of April. Similar changes have occurred in other local hospitals over the past month, including Westerly Hospital, Roger Williams Medical Center, Our Lady of Fatima Hospital, and South County Hospital. To some, this is a sign that things are looking up.
“As we’ve seen during the pandemic, things are changing all the time,” said Dr. Philip Chan, professor at Brown University, infectious disease doctor at Rhode Island Hospital and The Miriam Hospital, and consultant medical director at the R.I. Department of Health. “I think this is more reflecting of the fact that we’re actually in a good place right now.”
Rhode Island’s COVID-19 cases are currently 30.9 per 100,000 people per week, one of the lowest levels since the beginning of the pandemic, Chan says. Based on these levels and guidelines from both the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention and RIDOH, the decision by hospitals to make masks optional does not come as a surprise.
Ultimately, what this change means is that the decision to wear a mask will be up to individual providers. Chan says he expects a large portion of doctors to continue wearing masks, especially when dealing with certain vulnerable patients.
Dr. Thomas Bledsoe, a general internist and primary care physician at East Providence Primary Care, says he was nervous when owner Brown Medicine said it would switch to optional masking in its facilities in the first week of April.
“It threw me off a little bit,” he said. “There was a seed of doubt.”
Since then, Bledsoe said he is keeping a “low threshold” for wearing a mask: he mostly goes maskless but always carries one with him in case he is treating a vulnerable patient or a patient feels uncomfortable. It’s important to be cautious, he says, and to respect patients’ wishes.
“COVID-19 is still out there,” he said. “One of us might come to the office with minor respiratory symptoms, feel like we have a cold, and we could give COVID-19 to patients.”
And while getting used to a maskless work life after three years will take some time, there are also some advantages, Bledsoe says. For example, seeing patients’ faces makes it easier to communicate with them.
Jesse Martin, executive vice president of Service Employees International Union 1199 New England, which represents more than 5,000 health care workers in Rhode Island, says many members feel anxious about policy changes.
“Health care workers suffered emotional and physical hurt during this pandemic,” Martin said. “Whenever the employer changes the way it addresses COVID-19, it’s like reliving that trauma all over again.”
Martin says workers understand there has to be a return to normalcy, but they remain concerned for their vulnerable patients and themselves.
But officials say loosening protocols now does not mean things won’t change again. As the state and hospitals continue to monitor cases, a new surge – which many anticipate in the fall – would inevitably lead to the return of universal masking.
“This is a sign we’re moving in the right direction,” Chan said. “But we still have to be cautious, we need to continuously evaluate and follow what’s happening.”