PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island Hospital’s emergency department is accepting all EMS cases after about 24 hours diverting calls to area hospitals in response to United Nurses and Allied Professionals Local 5098’s strike at the facility and Hasbro Children’s Hospital, Lifespan Corp. announced at 4 p.m. Tuesday.
The state’s only Level 1 trauma center continued to care for all trauma cases and other cases that only Rhode Island Hospital can provide in the region while it had R.I. Department of Health permission to divert cases to other hospitals, according to the company. The lifting of the diversion followed the transition of about 800 of temporary replacement clinicians into the hospital at the start of the strike Monday afternoon, which is expected to last until 3 p.m. Friday.
“Rhode Island Hospital appreciates the cooperation of the Rhode Island Department of Health and the states’ other health care facilities over the last two days,” said Margaret M. Van Bree, president of Rhode Island Hospital.
Rhode Island Hospital also resumed accepting patients needing advanced stroke care as of Monday evening. Patients with a suspected ELVO, or large vessel occlusion, can be eligible for a clot extraction, called thrombectomy. The hospital’s interventional radiology team is the only hospital in the state that performs the procedure.
Rob Borkowski is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Borkowski@PBN.com.
