BATON ROUGE, La. (LOCAL 33/FOX 44) – Essential businesses like hospitals are seeing some slight changes as they prepare for phase one of reopening.

“You know. I think hospitals in general are way, way, way ahead of where we were when this began,” said Dr. Chris Trevino with Our Lady of the Lake Ascension Hospital in Gonzales, La.

Dr. Trevino said hospitals now know what to do to manage a COVID-19 patient. He noted testing is a major factor.

Dr. Trevino explained, “Our testing was seven days, maybe longer when it first started and that put us in a bind because we didn’t know if we were testing a COVID patient or not.”

Dr. Trevino added testing results are back in about 24 hours. Ascension Parish has the second most COVID-19 cases in our area and the second highest number of deaths.

Monday, Governor John Bel Edwards said the state is ready to move into a phase one reopening.
Things won’t change much for hospitals. You won’t be able to visit a loved one and elective procedures will continue.

Dr. Trevino said he’s worried about having enough PPE and a large number of patients at one time.
He says hospitals are the safest places right now.

“We really, really have to put the safety of our patients and of each other at such a high level that the general public is probably way safer here than most places,” said Dr. Trevino.

Dr. Trevino added the biggest concern is people who need medical care not visiting their doctors. He explained some patients are making their illnesses worse by doing this.