The Castleview Hospital announced this week that they would resume elective and non-urgent surgeries and procedures on a limited basis and Castle Country Radio was able to sit down with Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Greg Cook to talk about this.

“It’s time to get back to some sense of normalcy and so we’re going to open up on a limited basis. We want to make sure that we’re not taking that too fast and we’re keeping the public and our employees safe. So yea, we will be offering some procedures slowly as we ramp up over the next several weeks,” stated Cook. The hospital will begin to do urgent elective procedures as they are referred from the patient’s primary physician. In order to have a surgical procedure the patient will be required to take a COVID19 test.

The strict visitation process will remain in effect with some slight changes. “If you’re a surgical patient and you’re going to have one of those elective procedures we will allow one visitor. We’re also relaxing just a little bit on our ER visitation policies and we’re going allow one visitor there as well. So all the other visitation policies that we’ve communicated in the past will stay in place,” explained Cook. All visitors will be screened but not tested when they arrive at the hospital, plus they will be required to wear a mask and remain in the area where they are visiting.

If you are showing symptoms of the Coronavirus get in contact with your primary physician.  “They will order a test and then they’ll guide you through the process. Again, we’re not charging for those tests, that’s a free service that we’re offering. Those samples are sent to the state lab and we’re getting results in about 24 to 48 hours, sometimes that stretches a little bit but the procedures for testing, if you have symptoms, are the same as they’ve been,” said Cook.