HELENA — Shodair Children's Hospital says they are fully operational and visitors can see those in the residential units. They hope to maintain this status through the winter time as they purchased an Abbot Point of Care Testing system which can reveal COVID-19 and influenza results in 15 minutes.
"We are excited to have the ability to test staff as well for COVID-19 or influenza, and that way, we can keep communicable diseases out of the hospital," says Michelle Herron, the Infection Control Nurse at Shodair.
Shodair says they have not had anyone on their campus test positive for the virus. Which leaves the go ahead for Shodair to continue their school-based services in partnership with the Helena Public Schools reopening plan. The director of the services says their reopening plan is similar to Helena Public Schools.
"Our safety plan is really similar across programs with a few minor differences,” says Jenna Eisenhart, School-based Services Director at Shodair. “So, our CSCT teams are going to be working back in their identified, public school."
The CSCT program stands for Comprehensive School and Community Treatment which provides additional help for students if agreed between parents and school admin. The Day Treatment schooling located at Shodair will be handled in a stricter manner as Jenna says there will be more screenings implemented.
"Shodair, I think, is uniquely and well-positioned to have kiddos return to school because we were fully operational throughout the pandemic,” says Jenna. “You know, we never closed our doors. Our teachers kept teaching, our therapists kept doing therapy. I think they're advantageous in this, right? They already know the policies and procedures for masks."
Shodair does not have an official start date for their Day Treatment program, as of August 13th, 2020.
Shodair CSCT teams will be in public schools when the fall semester begins.
