Ascension Via Christi President Bob Copple said Friday that you will not get COVID-19 at the hospital. "This week we've had a number of patients who were admitted to the hospital and they had significant health issues not related to COVID-19. And we suspect that they didn't seek healthcare sooner because they were worried about COVID-19. And we're seeing this across the country. It's being documented everywhere, people having bad outcomes because of that.
Copple encouraged people that have a health issue to always reach out to their physician's office and make contact. He said if the illness is significant they do need to go to the hospital.
Copple said the hospital buildings are built differently than those of everyone else. "We have very sophisticated air handling systems, we compartmentalize things differently. We've been doing universal masking now for several weeks, taking all of these precautionary steps and so you as a patient don't need to worry about getting COVID-19 coming to the hospital."
Copple spoke during a local daily briefing hosted on the Riley County Health Department Facebook page.