Both Texarkana Hospitals Issue Open Letter Regarding COVID-19

Due to the recent surge of the coronavirus and uptick of COVID-19 infections in the Texarkana area Christus St. Michael Helath System along with Wadley Regional Medical Center is asking our community to come together to help in the ongoing battle to help slow the spread.

Both Texarkana Hospitals have issued this open letter to the community.

November 2020 To Our Communities We Serve:

COVID-19 continues to be a major health risk, and Christus St. Michael Health System and Wadley Regional Medical Center are asking for your help again in this ongoing battle to slow the spread of this virus. We are seeing an increased incidence of COVID-19 infections in Texarkana and the surrounding communities. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have urged those in our community to protect themselves, their neighbors, and their loved ones amidst the worst global health crisis in generations. After months of physical distancing and staying at home, infections and deaths began to decline. But, as were opened, some of the steps that were critical to slowing the spread have been relaxed. As a result, we are now experiencing an areal-time uptick in COVID-19 cases.

As your community hospitals, we are committed to providing great care to all who come seeking it, but we remain vigilant in working to make sure our staff has the needed resources and to keep them safe as they provide that much-needed care. Each day, it seems as though we are experiencing an increasing number of coronavirus cases and continued high numbers of hospitalizations both locally and throughout our country. We implore you to take the simple steps we know will help stop the spread of the virus:

• Wear a facemask
• Wash your Hands
• Often Social Distance

We also encourage people who have fully recovered from COVID-19 for at least two weeks to consider donating plasma, which may help save the lives of other patients. Convalescent plasma may contain antibodies to help fight against COVID-19. The toll of this pandemic is already staggering, and it will take many more months, perhaps years, to truly understand its impact on our country and our way of life. But what is certain –and what the science and evidence are telling us –is that COVID-19 is not behind us and we must resist confusing re-opening with returning to normalcy. Doing so can escalate this crisis and result in more suffering and death. We are not powerless in this public health crisis, and we can defeat it in the same way we defeated previous threats to public health—by allowing science and evidence to shape our decisions and inform our actions. There is only one way we will get through this – together.

Thank you for joining us to keep our community safe and health.