warm sunny days are ahead, we can do this!
It should come as no surprise that 60% of the candidates we woo, relocate and settle into NE Ohio are being recruited by healthcare institutions. Team NEO and the Greater Cleveland Partnership have consistently shared data that shows roughly 1 in 6 people in our region has a job directly or indirectly tied to the healthcare industry. So if you are a small business in our town, it is almost a given that your client roster will have names like the Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth Medical Center, University Hospitals, Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, SUMMA Health, Akron Children’s Hospital….and we are no exception.
An amazing healthcare landscape has always be a strength of our region that we bragged about. People come from all over the world to access our surgeons, our healthcare providers. We tell people that if someone you love does get sick, at least you have the best doctors in the world within a 30 minute drive.
So it is with growing concern that I watch the stress and strain that our core clients are facing during the Covid19 pandemic. We are still all unsure how it will ultimately affect Ohio, but the idea of a surge in 2-3 weeks that could potentially overwhelm our hospitals scares us all. But I am so proud of how our state has responded with resolve and taking shelter-in-place literally. When I hear that the Cleveland Clinic has turned their brand new state of the art Health Eduction Center, which in normal times houses their schools of medicine, dentistry & nursing, into a makeshift overflow hospital I am so proud of the CEO’s of these institutions that are making swift important and life saving decisions. These leaders must be getting very little sleep and probably have their own fears and uncertainties yet focus on how to prepare for the surge.
From the bottom or our hearts, thank your doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, security guards, cleaning and transport crews, cafeteria workers….anyone putting themselves on the front line with Covid19 patients so we can safely move up the curve and come back out on the other side. Proud of our client, the Cleveland Clinic, whose doctors and nurses are inspiring patients to write messages like this. And the shares from Akron Children’s on their FB page.
It’s like the Marines have landed and taken the burden off the rest of us civilians for a short time.
And as we think of our clients working hard in this space …… so happy and proud of our client, Athersys, a biotech company that has been quietly working in the trenches on life saving pharmeceuticals and medical treatments and who just received FDA fast tracking to continue to work on cell therapy called MultiStem for patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) which is what is the leading cause of death for Covid19 patients.
Proud of our client, Xellia Pharmaceuticals which just recieved their FDA approval to launch full scale manufacturing at their plant in Bedford, because who knows where the next treatment or vaccine will come from, right?
And to see how our health care systems have partnered and set aside any competitive feelings to do what is best for our town gives me such hope that one of the lasting results of Coronavirus may be a new sense of partnerships that spring up. Here is just one way University Hospitals and the Cleveland Clinic are partnering to keep us all healthy and safe. And I’m so happy to see that the intial long line of cars along Carnegie Avenue and E. 105th has been reduced as I drive past this testing site almost every day.
And MetroHealth Medical Center’s Akram Boutros immediately takes on a leadership role and addresses the city of Cleveland in this video, in a voice that can only be described as comforting and reassuring.
On a personal level, I have two sisters who are nurses, one in Los Angeles and one in Ashland County. My brother in law is a fireman/EMT and so hospital runs are part of the deal. I have two neices who are Cleveland Clinic nurses and a nephew who is doctor in San Antonia TX, all have young children at home and they are all so concerned that they will be exposed and bring the virus home to their families, but they still go to work every shift and I am so proud of them. None of them can take long walks with their dogs, bingewatch Netflix and work from home. They are all working their behinds off and I’m so proud of them.
And my AirBnB behind my home in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood has a visiting nurse from Pittsburgh who came in January to do a stint at the ER thru early May and then BAM, Covid19 and she is up to her eyeballs with sick patients at the Cleveland Clinic. When I reached out recently to see how I could help her….does she need food, toilet paper (anything to keep her happy and staying in CLE to help sick people get better ) she said she was just grateful I hadn’t kicked her out as she has heard horror stories of healthcare workers who are having their rental contracts terminated because the landlords are worried about being exposed to Covid19. I am lucky that my AirBnB is completely seperate from my house, but still I don’t think I would have the heart to ask a nurse working to save lives to go find another place to live right now! We can all do a little something, right?
So the photo at the top of this blog post is just to remind us all that we are just about a month away from being able to wear shorts and be outside, so if we are all still sheltered-in-place, at least we can be out on boats, playing a round of golf, sitting on a beach…..all 6-10′ apart of course! What other healthcare heros have you come in contact with lately. Share stories!