“As a healthcare leader, McLaren Flint’s primary focus is to provide high quality healthcare services to patients throughout the communities we serve. Thanks to the commitment of our entire workforce, notably our frontline healthcare workers, along with our medical staff, community partners and vendors, we were able to keep that focus front and center as we managed the challenges that COVID-19 presented.
From the onset of COVID-19, McLaren Flint moved quickly to protect our patients, visitors and staff. I am very proud of our team and how everyone rapidly adapted to the constant changes required in confronting this health crisis. Our preparation for COVID-19 began long before we saw our first patient with the virus. Our team secured appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE), began screening patients and staff for symptoms, put visitor restrictions in place, prepared our intensive care unit and equipped dedicated COVID-19 treatment units to be ready for a potential surge of cases. We established a multidisciplinary task force to oversee our response to the pandemic, and deployed our corporate laboratory services to establish new virus testing capabilities and locations to significantly expand our ability to identify the infected and direct them to appropriate levels of care. Throughout this pandemic, McLaren Flint staff have displayed the unwavering commitment and resilience needed to continue to support the healthcare needs of our patients and communities. Since the onset of the coronavirus in Michigan, McLaren Flint’s healthcare workers have heroically and compassionately cared for inflicted patients, while continuing to care for patients battling cancer, cardiovascular disease, strokes, traumatic injuries and hundreds of other conditions.
The safety of our patients and team members is always our top priority. I want to assure our communities that McLaren patients are being treated in a safe environment by personnel who are adhering to the most current and rigorous safety standards, following CDC guidelines. In early May, we began to safely resume time-sensitive care in our hospital and ambulatory clinics, and over the past month are fully operational to serve patient needs, both emergent and routine. In healthcare, our new normal will include closely monitoring the prevalence of coronavirus in our community and continuing to adhere to the safety guidelines and PPE standards to best protect our patients and staff.
While this time in our lives has been truly challenging, we also have much to be thankful for. From the early stages of the crisis, McLaren Flint was blessed with requests from individuals and businesses asking how they could help. Examples include our McLaren Flint Auxiliary volunteers and other individuals who sewed over 7,000 cloth masks; businesses and schools that donated supplies and PPE, more than 43 restaurants and businesses that provided meals to our team over the course of many weeks, and donors who have contributed to a special fund to further support our staff.
On behalf of the entire McLaren Flint organization, I am immensely grateful for the dedication of our physicians and staff and the overwhelming generosity and support of our community during this unprecedented time.”
Chad Grant, Regional President, Central Region,
President and CEO, McLaren Flint
Dr. Geeta Rode
Pulmonologist/Critical Care Medicine Specialist
“Dr. Rode was my mother’s doctor while she was in the McLaren Flint ICU for COVID-19. She is a wonderful and compassionate woman who did everything within her power to try to save my mother. She still works in the COVID unit. She took time to call my father, brother, and I at all hours with updates on my mother and kept us extremely informed on the decisions she was making. She never gave up on my mother, working every day to try to get her to turn the corner for recovery. When my mother passed on 6.4.2020, she called me and spoke with me for about 20 minutes, giving me her condolences and telling me how proud my mother was of me. She deserves every accolade she can get.”
Alyson Burch
Nicholas Duso
Manager of Environmental Services, McLaren Flint
“My husband, Nick, is dedicated to keeping patients, hospital staff and his colleagues healthy. He goes above and beyond.”
Mary Duso
