Medical Officials Encouraging Public to Visit Hospital or Doctor’s Office When Needed

Hospitals and medical clinics have been seeing a decline in patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, but with the Governor allowing facilities to do some elective surgery again, Dr. Malcolm Butler, Chief Medical Officer for CVCH, says if you're sick, come in and get it checked out.

"I say that for several reasons. One is right now we know that our health care system is doing just fine. We have lots of capacity to see what we consider normal stuff. Also, what you may not know is that the emergency room and most clinics have set things up to separate people with COVID like symptoms from everyone else ."

Some clinics are also finding ways to not use the waiting room, and that people who wait too long to go to the ER or doctor have a harder time recovering.

Dr. Butler says they have seen many people staying away from going to the doctor, either afraid of catching coronavirus or trying to be considerate of the medical community.

"While we still need to worry about COVID-19, I think all of us need to remember that heart attacks and strokes still happen at very inconvenient times. If you're worried that you've got something bad going on, right now it is safe to come and get that checked out."

Dr. Butler says the community is doing a great job and it appears that we are on the down slope.