Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Mass., will soon reopen cardiac rehabilitation and pulmonary rehabilitation, which closed in August because of staffing challenges amid a nurses strike.
The outpatient services will reopen "in the coming weeks," according to a news release from Jan. 19.
"Our cardiac rehab and pulmonary rehab programs are instrumental in improving quality of life for many of our patients, and we are thrilled to be able to reopen them," Saint Vincent CEO Carolyn Jackson said in the release. "We look forward to restarting these programs because previous participants were thrilled with both the quality of the experience and the compassion of our teams."
News of the reopening came after nurses voted to ratify a new contract Jan. 3, officially ending a 301-day strike.
Saint Vincent has already reopened 12 inpatient behavioral health beds that were closed in August 2021 because of staffing challenges during the strike, representing 60 percent of the hospital's inpatient psychiatry capacity.