Iberia Medical Center board vote set for capital request to create permanent negative pressure rooms used to treat COVID-19 patients

Published 12:00 pm Wednesday, October 28, 2020

The Iberia Medical Center board will be voting Thursday evening on a capital request to create several permanent COVID-19 negative pressure rooms.

Through the pandemic, hospitals worldwide have had to engineer negative pressure rooms on the fly to provide the negative pressure space needed to treat COVID-19 positive patients while still keeping other areas — like nurses stations, hallways and common areas — free from infection. By creating lower air pressure in a COVID-positive patient’s room, it allows for the air to be vented in a way that prevents the disease from spreading under doors, through ventilation systems or even through wall or ceiling cracks and seams.

As the need developed over the last seven months, the hospital has adapted areas of its campus to meet the needs of the patient load. The capital request would insure that there would always be negative-pressure spaces available outside the intensive care unit for COVID-19 patients.

The board will also vote to accept the state’s audit compliance questionnaire, an annual requirement.

The Iberia Medical Center Board of Commissioners will meet at 5:30 p.m. Thursday evening in Meeting Room 2 of the hospital’s North Campus.