You heard about it and now local medical officials are telling you no to mass gatherings during the COVID-19 emergency. Marc-Andre Gravel, is chairman of a committee of health care service professionals and town of Kapuskasing staff that meets daily over the virus. Gravel, who is Centre De Sante’s General Manager, says that those mass gatherings apply also for waiting rooms.
“What we are doing is focusing on telephone appointments so as much as possible we want people to phone ahead and not just show up,” he said. “When people phone ahead we can work on an appointment over the phone.”
Gravel says you should avoid going to Sensenbrenner Hospital’s emergency room unless absolutely necessary, but if you need then go by yourself. The Hospital is restricting visitors to one per patient during visiting hours. All elective and non-urgent surgeries have also been postponed for the next two weeks.
He says it’s important to remind people to stay home if they are sick.
“So more people that are quietly at home taking care of their families then there are less chances of the virus spreading that way, ” he said. “This is the best form of prevention even though there are no cases of the virus in our region right now.”
