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Missoula health officials amazed at additional staffing response

Cindy Farr
Posted at 3:35 PM, Mar 23, 2020
and last updated 2020-03-23 19:04:33-04

MISSOULA — Missoula County's Incident Command for the coronavirus outbreak says there's been an "overwhelming response" for the county's call for more nurses to help staff the health department.

Just over a week ago, the managers of the Missoula City-County Health Department had said they were scrambling to find enough nurses to continue to provide critical services in response to COVID-19, and the additional services that are needed right now.

But latest word now is that many nurses have come forward, filling that gap at the health department.

"We were able to staff, and have backup staff on hand. So that not only if our staff were to contract the virus, but as this starts to get bigger and we need to pull in more staffing, we have all the staff that we need right now," said Cindy Farr, Missoula City-County Health Department Incident Commander.

Farr said during a recent press conference that the additional staffing is helping the Health Department meet the expand services that are being required right now.