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This is Health news from Helen Newberry Joy Hospital and healthcare center. Today. Were talking with dr. Michael Beaulieu chief medical officer at Helen Newberry. Joy and surgeon. Dr. Benjamin. They have good news for patients who might have hesitated to come to the hospital recently for check-ups and concerns doctor Beaulieu. Now that we've had a few weeks to catch our breath and measure things better. Were at the point where we're starting to say now. We got to start swinging this pendulum back in the other direction and get people looking after their health. I'm reading too many stories about people not necessarily here, but no other communities staying home with chest pain and dying of a heart attack because they're scared to go to an emergency room that where they might get exposed to a virus and I want to make sure that people in this community know that we still have not had a single case of the coronavirus in our building. We have not Lord our guard everybody who comes in that building is screened according to the CDC guidelines and then if they require actual testing they get Testing. So we're on top of every single person that comes into that building but to pick up on what doctor Beaulieu said. This pandemic has terrified people to the extent that they just aren't getting the care that they need for other conditions heart problems lung problems. Their blood sugars are out of control all kinds of different things. And I mean, it started a measurable impact on the health of everybody across the country. So I think it's very important for the people in our community to know that it should come to the hospital if it's safe. Now, I know recently you touted telemedicine as an alternative during the worst of the pandemic but it sounds like at this point you'd rather see patients in person. Now, we can't escape the fact that telemedicine is not the same thing is coming to see the doctor. It's just not because you can't do a physical exam on telemedicine. And so coming in and being able to talk to the doctor in the privacy of an exam room and really be checked out thoroughly. It makes a huge difference and we don't want the public to feel like God, you know, we cant go to the hospital where we're taking our life and our hands if we go to the hospital nothing could be further from the truth or doctor Beaulieu said we've had no cases and were still screening very actively so it is a safe place to come and now the dad is telling us that its time to start getting people paying more attention to their diabetes paying more attention to their cancer screening don't ignore the things that we usually did to keep herself safe like mammograms and colonoscopies and getting your blood test monitored. So you can make sure your hypertension your kidney disease your diabetes under control. This certainly doesn't sound any different or running counter to any guidelines were hearing about from the federal government is it was not asking anybody to disregard any Have been made by the governor of the president or the CDC and were still following all of those guidelines and we even had a meeting regarding our surgical procedures yesterday and said, what is everything the guidelines say, we should we doing and are we doing it? And then we said is there more we could be doing, you know, this virus. It's not going to disappear. Okay, were going to have to get iron control over it. Were going to have a vaccine were going to have effective treatments and were going to have to keep an eye on it. So if somebody gets sick with it, we can deal with it appropriately. We're already at the point. I think were a certain amount of normalcy is only reasonable because without that people don't get the care. They need one of the things you're going to see that's different is it when you come to the hospital you'll be screened with the CDC screening questions of seeing if you have any symptoms that suggest a viral infection or if you've been in a place that puts you at risk that sort of thing. So that's different as far as okay chest pains kind of guy. Get worse by breathing is kind of got a little bit worse. It's just not worth it to go to the hospital because that's a scary place wrong. Thinking absolutely the wrong thinking the hospital is not a scary place the hospitals probably one of the safer places. So I think in that sense the idea that you can go back to the hospital as you normally do. Yes. I think there is a return to that. Thank you. Dr. Michael Beaulieu chief medical officer at Helen Newberry Joy along with surgeon Dr. Benjamin Bryant.