Never has it been safer to go to the hospital, health officials insisted Tuesday morning.
Protocols are in place to protect patients and medical personnel from covid-19 infection, and everyone who needs surgery of any kind should not hesitate to get it. That's the message from the top executives of every hospital across central Arkansas.
On Tuesday, they launched the Take Care Arkansas campaign, which is aimed to reassure Arkansans that they should not risk further ill health for the sake of avoiding the coronavirus.
The CEOs of six hospitals, along with Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott, spoke to the media urging patients who need elective surgeries and critical care to seek the treatment they need.
"The pandemic came along and set all of that aside," Hutchinson said during Tuesday morning's news conference in front of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce building on East Markham Street. "We need to re-engage and that's what this campaign does."
Fifty for the Future, a nonprofit that aims to develop regional projects for the progress of the Little Rock metro region, has teamed with the six hospitals and Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield to kickstart the Take Care Arkansas campaign, which will last for three weeks and will include multi-media advertising to urge people to address all medical needs.
Dr. Dean Kumpuris, medical director for Fifty for the Future, said the temporary halt to voluntary elective procedures that took place earlier during the emergency was necessary, but people need to feel safe and secure now that it has been lifted.
"We must make people understand their health care situation is not an either-or situation," Kumpuris said. "We have an ability to take care of all covid situations and at the same time take care of other Arkansans who have other illnesses."