St. Luke's has made the announcement that they will be temporarily pausing certain elective or non emergency procedures that require an overnight hospital stay due to COVID 19.

According to the news release from St. Luke's, there is a high patient volume in their medical centers and an increase in COVID 19 activity so they will be temporarily pausing some services.

According to the news release the pause is to plan for an increase in patient volume as they anticipate more people to be admitted. The pause does not impact elective outpatient surgeries or procedures that do not require a patient to stay in the hospital over night.

St. Luke's Magic Valley will have the pause effective now through August 20th. That means all elective surgical, catherization lab, interventional radiology and endoscopy procedures requiring overnight stay will be cancelled.

According to the news release, St. Luke's will continue to monitor the capacity for care and adjust it as they can and find appropriate.

Dr. Jim Souza, the Chief Physician Executive for St. Luke's Health System stated:

"We are implementing this pause in order to accommodate and plan for increased patient volume as our patients needing to be admitted has doubled in two weeks and the COVID-19 positivity rate continues to climb...We strongly encourage and are appealing to individuals to take measures to decrease the spread of COVID-19, including vaccinations for those who are eligible and wearing a mask indoors whenever you are around individuals who are not part of your immediate family..."

For more information you can click here to see which hospitals are going to be impacted and when.

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