Changes brought about by the pandemic

Dear community,

We wanted to share what we are doing  to prevent the spread of COVID19 and stay active as a clinic during this occurrence. For the latest updates weekly please visit us on Facebook @BMHBirthplace. We are deeply committed to continuing to serve our community/clients and keeping Breath of My Heart a safe place to be. In order to do this we must take precautions to avoid contamination in the clinic space and keep our staff healthy so that we can remain in service. Here are some changes that you should know about when you plan to visit the clinic:

General:

  • Monday Walk-in clinic day will now require appointments, although these can be made same-day
  • Only one client will be admitted to the clinic at any one time
  • We will leave a 15 min gap between appointments so that staff can completely disinfect all patient use areas before another client is admitted 
  • We are observing social distancing practices so there will be minimal staff on-site at any one time: only those necessary to provide direct care. 
  • Our other programs are still running including food distribution and Young Parent support services!

New clients:

  • We are currently accepting clients for both Home and Birth Center births up to 38 weeks of pregnancy.
  • We will call you to do a phone screening prior to coming in for a consult, initial visit or tour of the facility.
  • Under some circumstances we may ask you to perform a self-isolation or do remote visits prior to initiating in-person care to minimize risk of spread of infection. 
  • If you are considering transferring care to us, please contact us as soon as possible as we have a limit to the number of births we can do in a given month. 

Established clients:

  • If you arrive early please wait in your vehicle, we have other clients and need time in between appointments to disinfect.
  • During all visits, both BMH staff and clients are required to wear masks. This includes home visits–even though it may feel unintuitive, we ask clients and family members present in the room to maintain this request.
  • We ask that you stay vigilant about signs of illness in your family or those you interact with regularly. Please do not come to the office if you or someone you live with is exhibiting signs of illness.
  • You may request remote visits if you feel uncomfortable coming into the clinic or believe you may have been exposed to COVID19. 
  • Midwives are still remaining on-call 24/7 for clients and are happy to answer your questions and provide support.

What we are doing to keep you safe:  

  • We continue to maintain strict precautions within the clinic and follow our advanced cleaning protocol before/after every client interaction
  • We continue to maintain minimum staffing inside the building to reduce the density of people at any given time
  • We continue to take opportunities to meet in an open-air environment for conversations that do not require a ‘closed door’.
  • We have purchased air filtration equipment for each of our rooms, including birth rooms, to increase the air exchange that occurs inside our building. 
  • We test our staff members regularly for COVID-19 to prevent spread and better understand our risk status.
  • We continue to offer PPE to our clients and their families if they are unable to obtain it themselves.