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St. Luke's University Health Network resumes elective surgeries and procedures

An OBGYN surgeon from St. Luke's University Health Network weighs in on how COVID-19 has impacted her department.

MONROE COUNTY, Pa. — Plenty of people and places are getting used to a "new normal" as COVID-19 continues to impact our area. 

Numbers have slowed down significantly in Monroe County and elsewhere throughout the state, allowing for some hospitals to bring back elective surgeries and other related procedures, like St. Luke's University Health Network.

"When this first started, it was daily phone calls that kept us on top of what we were doing to protect ourselves, what we were doing to protect our patients, and it sort of changed frequently. We are sort of in a steady-state now where we've got this figured out pretty well, and we are feeling pretty safe," said Dr. Kelly Copeland, St. Luke's University Health Network.

Dr. Kelly Copeland works in the hospital's OBGYN department.

She says COVID-19 pushed back a lot of elective patient procedures, but about two weeks ago, that all changed, as did some pre-operation protocols.

"The big change for our patients is that they are going to be COVID tested before they have their surgeries and that's part of our efforts to keep everyone safe in the pre-operative and post-operative areas safe as well as our anesthesia, surgical staff safe during surgery and knowing all the patients coming in to have those procedures done are COVID negative," said Dr. Copeland.

COVID-19 also impacted the labor and delivery department for a period of time. Specifically for moms who were from out of state. 

"We did have a subset of moms, particularly from the New Jersey area that we were not able to have their partners be present because they lived in New Jersey and that two weeks just couldn't pass in time for them to have their babies, but we pulled out all the stops. We made sure those moms were never alone. Their nurses and provider teams were always by their side," said Dr. Copeland.

Doctors at St. Luke's University Health Network say they continue to use telemedicine for patients who still don't feel comfortable coming to the hospital but want to remind patients with serious medical issues to go to the emergency room.

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