By Rich Larson, News Director
Last night, the Northfield City Council approved an amendment to the City Charter, allowing for some modification to the membership of the hospital
board.
In December, the hospital board approached the city about the changes that would allow for up to 3 members of the board to live outside of the Northfield City Limits. In an adjacent change, the hospital requested that an employee of the hospital be allowed to sit on the board as well.
As the organization has grown from the Northfield Hospital to Northfield Hospital + Clinics, with multiple office locations around the area, the board found it would be helpful to have a medical professional among the members. The Charter specifically prohibited hospital employees from joining the board, which made the recruitment of a medical professional difficult, because that person would, almost by definition, have to be employed by a competitor of NH+C. The changes would allow for a doctor, or a nurse, or some type of direct care professional to become a board member, and by expanding the area of where that board member could live, they become that much easier to identify.
While the changes are of significant value to the hospital, the amending of the Charter is also significant. While addressing the council, Lance Heisler, the Chair of the Charter Commission said that amending the Charter is difficult, and for good reason. The City Charter is the fundamental set of rules and regulations for how the city should operate. An amendment required a report by a sub-committee of the commission, unanimous approval by the commission and then unanimous approval by the City Council.
After having been on several meeting agendas over the last few months, the amendment did pass unanimously, with minimal conversation.
Masks still required
Northfield Hospital and Clinics announced on Monday that it is loosening some of the Covid-19 related visitor restrictions that have been in place for the better part of a year.
Among the major changes, long term care patients are now allowed up to three visitors for a scheduled visit, hospital patients are now allowed to have two adult visitors, children may have two parents or guardians as visitors, birth center patients are now allowed two adult visitors, with one encouraged to stay overnight, and outpatient surgery patients may have one visitor in the Surgery Waiting Center.
All visitors to NH+C must wear a mask and be socially distanced. Visitors with Covid symptoms are not allowed.
Northfield Hospital + Clinics President and CEO Steve Underdahl said the continued mask and distancing protocols are the case for health care centers across the country. Their goal is to provide the safest possible environment, and the pandemic has not subsided enough to take the risk of relaxing those restrictions.
Even as the United States death toll from Covid-19 hit 600,000 people yesterday – a number that had once been given as potentially the grimmest possible outcome of the pandemic – Underdahl said the numbers are showing positive cases in decline as more and more people receive the vaccine. That number could stay in decline as long as we remember that the pandemic is still not yet over, and people need to stay vigilant.
“But it is also, I think, an issue of individual responsibility. Many people struggle with the idea that it’s fine if you want to get a vaccination, but you shouldn’t tell me what to do. We’re really trying to get to a place where we aren’t giving this virus any safe harbor or anyplace to go. So, if you really, really don’t want to get a shot, it’s really important that you wear a mask.”
Underdahl said, while this is a transitional point in the pandemic, where those who are fully vaccinated are not asked to wear masks in many situations, while those who are not vaccinated are asked to wear masks, it’s a point that could last for a while.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with Steve Underdahl can be heard here
Hillmann says community did things right
After a school year that offered so many different challenges, Northfield Schools Superintendent Dr. Matt Hillmann expressed gratitude yesterday to
the community, the district staff and faculty, and to the students of Northfield for persevering through what was a particularly difficult year.
Dr. Hillmann thanked everyone connected to the school district for showing flexibility, patience and confidence as plans for the year were changed and then changed again. He acknowledged that not everybody agreed with every decision made by the district, but he said all decisions were made based on the health of the students, staff and the community as a whole.
He also rejected the idea that the 2020-21 school year was a “lost year.” Hillmann said during the school year, the district had a total of 263 lab confirmed cases of Covid-19 within the staff and the student body, which caused the shifting to district learning, and a hybrid on-and-off campus model over the year. However, he said, students spent the vast majority of the year in some form of in-person learning. The only period of time when no students were in the classroom was from late November through January. Pre-K students up through second grade, he said, were in the classroom fulltime 81% of the year. Third through fifth grade students were in the classroom full time 77% of the year. And, he said, the middle school and high school students were in either full time in-person learning or the hybrid model for 75% of the year, including the entire fourth quarter. He said the national narrative might be that our students essentially lost a year of school, but he does not believe that is true for Northfield.
With that said, he did recognize the difficulty of the year, and called the Covid-19 pandemic “probably the most significant crisis of our lifetimes.” And he said, he is appreciative of the way the Northfield community has taken care of itself throughout the past 15 months.
“I am proud of our community. While we didn’t always agree and while there were some very difficult times and Covid really impacted people in a variety of different ways. People lost beloved family members, or they were worried about their financial situation or the changing of the school schedule. We all dealt with a lot of different things. But I think Northfield can look itself in the mirror and say ‘You know what? We did all right, and we supported each other.’”
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with Dr. Matt Hillmann can be heard here
