Multiple employees with WSU’s medical care service, Cougar Health, say university officials failed to adequately prepare over the summer for the return of thousands of students to Pullman — leaving staff scrambling to provide campus-based COVID-19 care with insufficient equipment or guidance.
“We are failing the students and the community,” one employee said.
Several employees voiced frustration with a lack of screen testing for frontline healthcare workers despite high numbers of staff calling in sick. Others complained of questionable or improperly sized personal protection equipment. They also described the emergency tents outside the Cougar Health clinic as mostly empty of equipment and unused after a month while leadership continued discussing how to make use of the facilities.
Employees said clinic safety directives force them to refer students to Pullman Regional Hospital for even minor illnesses while other protocols left some staffers nervous about how they might be exposed to infection. Some staff described being asked to perform duties outside their expertise while other times they sat for hours with nothing to do. University officials have also made announcements that misrepresent what they said they have seen prepared internally.
“Providers are left in the dark,” another employee said. “We’re always feeling that [administrators] are calling the wrong shots. … It’s endangering healthcare workers.”
Several people identifying themselves as Cougar Health Services employees brought these concerns to Whitman County Watch earlier this month. They asked to speak anonymously for fear of retaliation from supervisors. In some cases, they provided internal documents or communications to help corroborate their statements.
Whitman County Watch has requested additional records from the university to help clarify these reports. The WSU records office stated they would not be able to start releasing those records until mid-November. WSU often takes at least six weeks to release records, but those turnaround times have grown longer in recent months.
WSU President Kirk Schulz on Sept. 16 told Pullman Radio News that university officials had “slowed down” some COVID-19 preparation in July after deciding to move fall classes online, assuming the community healthcare system could handle a smaller number of returning students.
The university announced fall classes would be online on July 24, three weeks before campus housing opened. Many students living off-campus had leases with earlier move-in dates. WSU now estimates 12,000 to 13,000 students came back to town.
“We … felt under those circumstances that our colleagues at places like Pullman Regional Hospital had testing set up, operational, all the approvals there,” Schulz told Pullman Radio News. “You know, they had PPE and everything that was needed to be able to perform testing for what we considered was a very reduced set of people coming to town.”
In a public conference call on Sept. 1, community healthcare officials described their staffs as “exhausted” as they tried to keep up with the sudden testing demand in August. Public Health Director Troy Henderson noted providers were “worn down.”
“We’re all getting pretty fatigued with this,” he said.
Cougar Health medical director Dr. Bonnie de Vries also acknowledged during the call other healthcare providers had stepped up to “fill the gap” on testing and treatment of returning WSU students when COVID-19 infections started surging.
“I just want to first off thank everybody,” she said, “ … who is working so hard to help us take care of our students and address this tremendous public health emergency that we have going on and, I think dare I say, fill the gap, because WSU, we’ve been slow in getting our testing going.”
Health officials closed those calls to the public and media three weeks later.
Cougar Health employees told Whitman County Watch they started August with no clear plan for testing and limited supplies. They said de Vries, who has served as both Cougar Health medical director and co-incident commander for WSU’s COVID-19 response, went on vacation during the final key weeks of summer.
“She was completely unprepared for us to be back in the clinic,” one employee said.
“They just dragged their feet to the very end,” another employee said of WSU. “They’re just always behind the eight-ball.”
Cougar Health reportedly started testing students on Aug. 31. The university brought in a mobile testing unit for three days in early September before a National Guard unit opened additional testing on Sept. 8. See a timeline of other key COVID-19 actions and announcements below.
University officials previously announced a goal to test all Pullman-based students by the end of September. Cougar Health employees stated that goal was never realistic and internal records set a goal to test students by the end of October.
WSU spokesman Phil Weiler reported the combined facilities had tested about 2,300 students as of Friday. He said those testing numbers did not include the screen testing of student athletes. A Cougar Health clinic report from early last week stated nearly 1,000 WSU students had tested positive.
Cougar Health employees provided recent documentation that in a single day at least seven staff had called in sick out of about 95 total employees, but staff still could not get screen testing for frontline workers.
“Too bad I’m not a football player,” one Cougar Health employee said, “I would have been tested already.”
The university plans to roll out COVID-19 testing for asymptomatic faculty and staff tomorrow, Weiler noted. They have also announced a town hall for employees on Wednesday.
“The reason we started with students first is because that is where the need existed,” he wrote. “The increases in positive cases have occurred almost exclusively in the college-aged population.”
Multiple employees said an effort to develop a Cougar Health pandemic response and testing plan fell apart over the summer due to a lack of guidance from the medical director. They outlined a number of previous complaints about de Vries’ leadership, providing copies of two no confidence letters that at least 10 staffers signed and submitted to her supervisor in 2019.
The letters, which Whitman County Watch has requested but not otherwise obtained independently, describe unsafe healthcare practices, scheduling disparities, trust problems and low morale. Update: WSU later provided two letters, dated March and November of 2019, that match the letters provided by the employees.
Cougar Health employees said the demands of the pandemic have since exacerbated those previous management conflicts.
“They can’t ignore this anymore,” an employee said. “Now that there’s COVID, it’s a crisis.”
De Vries declined a request to comment for this story. WSU Associate Vice President of Student Engagement Ellen Taylor has served as interim executive director of Cougar Health Services for the past 18 months. WSU announced Thursday a newly hired executive director will take over leading Cougar Health Services next month.
UPDATE, Sept. 28: After this story published, de Vries emailed Whitman County Watch a statement, requesting it remain unedited and in its entirety if published:
While I have been asked to let Marketing and Communications answer inquiries about WSU’s COVID response, I do want to speak briefly on behalf of the Medical Clinic at Cougar Health, which I oversee. I was authorized on August 26 to plan student testing, and since August 31 my staff have been testing students every day that the university has allowed us to, generally outpacing the National Guard in testing numbers. My staff have brought to this work the professionalism, compassion, and concern for the welfare of our patients with which they approach everything. They have also trusted the tireless work of our partners at Environmental Health and Safety who have made sure that they are safe, knowing that we have access to a higher quality and quantity of PPE than most of our community partners. Many of these individuals have been working long hours, day after day, right along with me. When these teammates have concerns, they bring them to my daily all-staff huddles alongside dozens of their colleagues, knowing their questions will be answered as clearly as possible amidst the pandemic’s uncertainty. It is shameful that the habitually bitter words of a few ill-intentioned people should make my amazing staff look any less than the heroes that they are.
Weiler also provided email responses to some of the concerns described by Cougar Health employees. He said he could not specifically address any concerns about de Vries, but emphasized she “has been splitting her time between two full-time jobs since the first week of March” — Cougar Health medical director and co-incident commander of the WSU Emergency Management team.
As far as the management concerns, Weiler wrote that many departments had faced new demands on staff scheduling or job duties as the university copes with operating during a pandemic.
“Scheduling and workload issues [are] not unique to Cougar Health Services,” Weiler wrote. “It is something we are experiencing across other units on campus as well. … This unpredictability can lead to scheduling challenges and the occasional need for staff to pitch in and help in areas that may be outside their direct responsibility.”
Weiler acknowledged a nationwide shortage of PPE had made acquiring some sizes of N95 masks difficult. Multiple Cougar Health employees described mask sizing limitations and stated they were instead wearing industrial-style respirators.
“I don’t think we have enough N95 masks,” one employee said. “I don’t think some of the PPE is appropriate for use in a medical situation.”
(In a message sent after publication, Weiler contended “no employee has gone without properly fitted and appropriate personal protective equipment.”)
Cougar Health employees described the emergency tents as a key asset to be used as negative pressure chambers — removing inside air and pumping in filtered air — to assess and treat respiratory issues without bringing patients into the main clinic. But they say Cougar Health leaders have not allowed staff to use the tents while they continue figuring out how to equip and utilize them a month after they arrived.
De Vries said in the Sept. 1 conference call that the emergency tents, on loan from the state, did not show up with all the necessary equipment. At that time, she said Cougar Health COVID-19 testers worked near, but not inside, the tents. It was unclear how those practices might have changed or not since then.
“We are doing our testing currently in front of the tents,” she said in the call. “At the moment, they’re providing a nice backdrop for our testing center.”
Cougar Health employees say those tents could be used to safely see symptomatic patients or provide isolated testing. They also stated that limitations on the tents as well as an antiquated HVAC system in the clinic forced them to close testing for a few days during the recent wildfire smoke event — as student cases continued to surge.
Overall, the employees stated the National Guard had pulled much of the weight in the university’s initial testing and response. Other essential care or services have been outsourced to Pullman Regional Hospital’s emergency department or other local providers. Employees say Cougar Health has struggling to catch up.
“The [hospital] and the National Guard are doing all of our work,” one employee said. “When the Guard leaves, WSU will sink.”
UPDATE, Sept. 28: After this story published, Weiler send additional comments on the concerns. You can read that entire message here. It includes the following:
While we put our full-scale random testing plans on hold, we quickly stood up screening testing when it became clear that the illness was spreading among students living off campus. Classes started on August 24. A week later, Cougar Health Services began testing of students. Two days later, WSU brought it mobile healthcare unit from Spokane to supplement testing capacity. Three days later, the Army National Guard testing team was up and running. As of last night, those three testing centers had conducted 2,369 tests.
The Army National Guard has been an outstanding partner. The team is highly professional and very flexible. It has been a great pleasure to work with them. That said, the claim made by one of your interviewees that “the National Guard are doing all of our work” is not accurate. Last week, for instance, the National Guard conducted 258 tests while Cougar Health Services conducted 432 tests.
Public Health Director Troy Henderson said he hopes to see local COVID-19 infections dropping in the coming weeks as students recover and others adhere to social distancing guidelines. He said renewed social contact or changes to WSU class operations could result in similar surges later in the fall or next semester.
Whitman County Watch continues to work to verify additional complaints or alleged impacts of the local COVID-19 response. If you have information that corroborates or disputes these matters, you can contact us here.
TIMELINE of COVID-19 ACTIONS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
March 11: WSU announces classes to move online after spring break
March 15: Athletic competition canceled for spring
June 24: WSU announces fall classes would be in-person until Thanksgiving break
July 7: WSU officials announce housing contract changes amid backlash
July 7: WSU reports it can process hundreds of tests a day
July 10: County passes 50 cases
July 21: Contact tracing announced to contain COVID-19 on campus
July 24: WSU announces fall undergraduate classes will move online
Aug. 6: County passes 100 cases
Aug. 13: Website launches for student and staff attestation
Aug. 15: First move-in day for on-campus housing
Aug. 22: WSU issues statement warning of growing cases among students
Aug. 23: County passes 200 cases
Aug. 28: WSU announces start of testing ramp-up
Aug. 29: County passes 400 cases
Aug. 31: Cougar Health starts student testing
Sept. 2: Mobile testing center open for three days
Sept. 6: County passes 800 cases
Sept. 8: National Guard testing opens near campus
Sept. 10: WSU announces free testing for all Pullman students
Sept. 11-15: Cougar Health and National Guard testing shut down due to smoke
Sept. 12: County passes 1,000 cases
Sept. 24: County passes 1,200 cases
Sept. 24: WSU announces new executive director to take over Cougar Health
Sept. 29: WSU to start testing faculty and staff
See an archive of all the university’s COVID-19 announcements here.
No kidding. They failed to listen to experts in epidemiology. They failed to set up testing, and they failed to implement a 2-week quarantine for ALL students coming into Pullman. They have failed every step of the way and now they are trying to play catch-up after its already too late to contain it.
They were warned in APRIL that this would likely happen and they failed to heed that warning too. I’m disgusted with WSU’s president Schultz and WSU’s lack of response early on.
They had a chance to be proactive and instead are being reactive. There are a few people at WSU who need to be fired starting with Schultz.
I agree with everything in this comment except one thing. I don’t think the administration is being proactive OR reactive. They’re just not doing anything!
Anybody who works in the Medical Clinic immediately knows who the “sources” are in this story. Same handful of negative people who sit around making up gossipping in secret. Like they want to tear down anybody around them who is actually working hard. They are dis-gruntled and have been looking for any story they can tell against the Medical Clinic Management just because they don’t like them . looks like they found an ear in this journalist. “Providers are left in the dark” no only the staff who refuse to participate in any of the meetings and everyone knows who they are because they are always like this. “unsafe healthcare practices, scheduling disparities, trust problems and low morale’ no only that handful of people feel that way and they have been whispering gossips behind closed doors for all my years here. Only retalation around here is from their types. Sit around making up BS complaints while other people actually do all the hard work. Its total BS. Shame on you . this is a new low even for you.
Go actually talk to the the people working hard around here which is most of the staff and you will get a very different picture about the Medical Clinic and its leaders.
Having direct information on the internal dynamics that comes from this clinic, what was described in this article is not only factual but reality in many instances it’s much worse. The comments by “P.W.” can only be from a couple possible people and which could be labeled as an extremely small group who has something to lose from this getting out to the public. What people forget is that this staff went out of their way to take the issues with the Medical Director to internal WSU leadership and HR on numerous occasions, only when all else failed to address or even identify there was a problem did this article come out. WSU has never tried to cover up any major issues in the past, so the community should rest assure that they are credible in their response and how they have what’s best for the students and facility in view, right?? Oh, wait….there was that little (big) attempted cover up on the former vice provost debacle not that long ago. At the end of the day the community is in more danger because of the lack of leadership, and planning of the Medical Director and Sr. leaders at WSU refusing to address the sustained issues that come with her tenure. Please go survey the entire staff, it would be welcomed and show that the “P.W.” Comments are nothing but smoke and mirrors, not far from how the COVID response is being portrayed by the university after the fact. You don’t have to look very far to see who was prepared for students return and they don’t even have a Medical Director to guide them, or maybe that was actually their advantage??
As a community member, WSU administration should have been better prepared. If they had done a better job, my kids might have been able to attend their elementary school here in Pullman instead of trying to learn remotely through zoom. Therefore, administration needs to be held accountable.
I too, have direct experience with this clinic. The article is well written and professional. It understates what the staff have been subjected to since 2018. Over the course of the past two years, staff from multiple departments repeatedly sought assistance from academic affairs and HRS regarding the conduct of the medical clinic director, Dr. Bonnie de Vries. Clinical staff, health care providers, and reception staff have all met repeatedly with Ellen Taylor PhD, who has been Bonnie de Vries’ direct supervisor for the past 1.5 years. Some groups met with Ellen Taylor as a group on multiple occasions, then separately: They were desperate for relief from the disturbing behavior of the medical director. After multiple unsuccessful meetings by a large number of staff members with Ellen Taylor, staff members then reached out to HRS for assistance. Despite notifying Ellen Taylor that the HRS representative assigned to the medical clinic was not helpful with our issue with Bonnie de Vries, we were not offered an alternative. Multiple staff members sought assistance from an alternative HRS representative.
Multiple staff members, more than you would guess, and some that you would never expect have reached their limit of unprofessional conduct they could tolerate by the medical clinic director, Bonnie de Vries. Staff spent two exhausting years repeatedly pleading for relief from Bonnie de Vries’ direct supervisor, Ellen Taylor and multiple HRS representatives. Staff have given up on ever getting a response from university officials. Multiple staff have resigned. There are more to follow.
The clinic huddle zoom meeting today, 9/29/20 showed that the clinic leadership team doesn’t know what they don’t know. It was emphasized that staff are “expected” to bring concerns to their supervisor, and that they were “hurt” by the article. Staff did exactly this- they went to Bonnie de Vries directly and when interactions were consistently negative and unproductive, they later went to Ellen Taylor, and HRS many times over a two -year time span. If the leadership team think they are “hurt” please consider the anguish the staff members felt going repeatedly to ask for help, fearing retaliation, to make things better over a long period of time with no relief. Then, only to have their concerns concealed and inaccurately represented by the people they sought help from… All while continuing to endure the behavior by Bonnie de Vries that is almost unbelievable, and unfortunately not displayed to everyone. I will tell you what is hurtful- even today, after the article came out, Bonnie told the clinic on zoom that she comes to work every day and shows professionalism and kindness to everyone “even those who don’t deserve it” and “chooses not to feel animosity for the “dumb” things (no confidence letters written about Bonnie de Vries’ incompetence) people did 1 ½ years ago.” Something needs done and blaming clinic staff has only made this situation worse.
Wow. Its clear that the two main agitators are active in the comments here to intentionally misquote and misrepresent Dr. deVries , and most of the staff does not feel as they do.
I too heard those same quotations from Dr. de Vries yesterday. The thing that really struck me was her saying things like “I know most of you would never do anything like this” and saying it would be found out who said and wrote things about her. I doubt this will foster anyone coming forward as she said we are expected to do. Fortunately, this zoom was recorded, and these disputed quotes can be fact checked. Dr. de Vries was not misquoted or misrepresented. I am now most concerned about the misrepresentation, concealment and efforts to silence staff on the part of Dr. de Vries and her supporters.
Every thing ps says is accurate. Staff will not come forward because Bonnie de Vries is a bully. She makes threats and when She was told employees are going to HRS she cowers down and is “extra nice” for a few days, then back to her rude self. Her managers are not trained to manage staff, they simply run in circles without any managerial skills and the staff suffer day in and day out. When issues are brought to the managers the do not address it to the employee the complaint was about and try to solve the issues, they simply make a general statement, so the poor behavior continues. Hopefully this new CHS Director kicks the clinic into shape. I can’t imagine how those poor staff feel bullied all the time. I’ve heard numerous complaints from several staff.
Truth is WSU did put all of Pullman at risk knowing students were coming back. This affected the entire community and many people have lost all respect for WSU due to this.
Then to hear Bonnie de Vries went on vacation in the middle of this mess, shame on her and those who allowed it. She should have had to stay in Pullman until the plan was implemented.
Now the clinical staff have to do the testing. Make their manager who refuses to actually test patients and Bonnie de Vries who sits on zoom do the testing for a few days.
Not only did Dr. de Vries take three weeks off immediately prior to the start of the school year, she left the infection control committee with vague instructions to come up with a plan for dealing with Covid this year. When Dr. de Vries reviewed the work on the server the infection control committee had done, she wrote in red letters in the margin “This is crap.” This statement was time and date verified, as was the author, Dr. de Vries. This was witnessed by all on the infection control committee, the nurse manager, and the interim executive director. It was, like everything else, quickly and quietly swept under the rug. You cannot fix what you do not acknowledge.
Oh my god you people. Thsi vacation thing is a perfect example of how you take a small innocent thing and blow it up into a mountain. And it is also perfectly clear that everyone complaining here was one of the staff who took the whole summer off because if you had been around and working, then you would have known what was actually going on. Dr. De Vries and her teams were working like 7 days a week on the clinics acreditation that has to be done every few years. Every body actually working over the summer knew how much work was prepping for it. And like the article says “has been splitting her time between two full-time jobs since the first week of March” so she was also trying to get WSU ready for covid in the fall. So she took a week of vacation in July and then came back to working overtime. Meanwhile like the article says, the WSU did not even give her permission to start testing until August 26. So you have somebody working massive overtime who takes a short break in July and you turn this all into a bad thing? you people really are awful.
but why not let everyone know how you come up with your complaint letters? You sneak poeple into secret meetings, you get them to list every complant they might have and of course everyone can complain about something, then you use lots of words to make them sound a lot bigger. and worst of all you then sign everybodys name to the letter as f they all agreed to all the copmlaints even if they did not agree to sign it. Like you went out and bought an acre of land and are now telling people you own a mountain. You are so full of bitterness and BS that you really should think about going upstairs and talking to oen of the mental health staff. the vast majority of staff working for Dr. De Vries does not support all of your BS.
Also could we should start naming the names of the complainers here? Bet you have already broken a lot of WSU rules by talking about all this crap. but maybe naming names would start a lot of icky.
People are not going to put their actual names because Bonnie is a bully. Folks HAVE brought this to Bonnie’s leadership, yet Bonnie is still here. Also, I know for a fact a lot of these complaints and statements are from full time 10-12 month employees, so the one person defending Bonnie should compare the negative vs positive comments.
As an (older) community member, I am concerned that WSU has done a poor job with Covid. A lot of people in the community are older and have health problems and WSU’s poor showing could kill us.
It is sad that a lot of the staff at student health have no faith in the medical director. Maybe she should resign and go back to being a regular doctor in the clinic and let someone else run the clinic and the Covid program. The new leader coming soon could appoint a new medical director.
If these clinic doctors and nurses quit student health will be sunk. Something has to be done, WSU!