Page 17 - Healthcare News Sept.-Oct. 2020

Spiros Hatiras says the staff
at Holyoke Hospital put their roles aside and did whatever was necessary to respond to the crisis at the Soldiers’ Home.
2020 HEALTHCARE HEROES
Dani Fine Photography
The Staff of
Holyoke Medical Center
I
t was coming up to noon on Friday, April 4, and the staff at Holyoke Medical Center was frantically working to ready facilities there for the arrival of residents of the nearby Holyoke Soldiers’ Home,
who needed to be relocated in the midst of a
tragic COVID-19 disaster that would make headlines across the country.
Carl Cameron, HMC’s chief operating officer, who was overseeing that work, was on the phone with his boss, hospital President and CEO Spiros Hatiras, who was telling him that some promised National Guard personnel would likely soon be arriving from the Soldiers’ Home to help with the massive and complex undertaking.
HEALTHCARE HEROES OF WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
“We had our own army of people. And it was absolutely outstanding and amazing how that team came together and got this done.”
Amid the Crisis at the Soldiers’ Home, This Small Army Answered the Call
Cameron’s response more than sets the tone for a truly inspiring story that most still haven’t heard, but certainly should.
“I told him that at that point not to bother,” he recalled. “Because we had our own army of people. And it was absolutely outstanding and amazing how that team came together and got this done.”
Indeed, HMC’s small army, which would grow in numbers in the coming days and weeks, as we’ll see, came together in every way imaginable to bring 39 residents of the home into a hospital that was
in the early stages of the COVID-19 fight itself. An acute-care hospital, HMC was not in the business of providing long-term care. But, to borrow a phrase from hockey, it shifted on the fly, and essentially got into that business.
By George O’Brien
OCTOBER 2020 A5