#PowerofRural Spotlight: Tidelands Health is bolstered by community support during COVID-19 pandemic
When the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, the leadership team at Tidelands Health approached it “with our normal disaster preparedness mindset,” said Chief Operating Officer Gayle Resetar.
Of course, this pandemic turned out to be anything bur “normal,” as cases spikes and subsided, messaging from national leadership changed, hospital staff was enlisted for the public health work of testing and vaccinating, and pandemic response changed every aspect of life as we know it over the past two years.
The one thing that remained constant at Tidelands Health, though, was a commitment to being transparent with the communities of Georgetown and Horry counties, and sharing a consistent message both inside and outside their walls.
As the healthcare system shared information with their community and asked them to make sacrifices when it came to visiting loved ones or following COVID protocols, they were pleasantly surprised by the positive mindset they saw in return.
“The response wasn’t ‘This is terribly unfair and I can’t believe you’re doing this.’ The response was ‘How can we make the best of this?’” Resetar said. “The community really began to rally around the idea that we’re doing the best we can with the information we have today.”
Over the course of the past two years, there have been cookies delivered to nurses. There was a group of volunteers who made masks from donated new t-shirts when it seemed N95 and surgical masks might be in short supply. There were businesses that put signs in their windows and kids who drew in sidewalk chalk to say “Thank You To Our Helpers.” There were parking lot prayer vigils. There were families who waited with balloons and signs watching a hospital room window for news of a birth, rather than fighting the limited visitation policies.
“Rather than creating panic in the community, it became a story of ‘we want to be part of the solution,’” Resetar said. “It helped the staff so much to see they were being supported in the community.”
When it came time to organize testing and vaccine sites, and to share information with the community, the Tidelands staff became ambassadors for those efforts. In a small community, the healthcare system is often one of the largest employers, so healthcare workers are an important part of the education efforts, as they are a trusted source of information among friends and neighbors.
“It has to relate to how connected we are in the community,” Resetar said. “Even our leadership staff, we live here. We’re in the neighborhood.”
And while large urban areas might have seven or eight hospitals to choose from, in small communities, there is only one. To Resetar, the “power of rural” lies in the privilege and responsibility of being that singular trusted source for healthcare and information for your neighbors.
“Our sense of how we feel personally responsible for our community is part of that rural mindset,” she said. “We feel a responsibility to take care of our community.”
Photo provided by Tidelands Health
