Dr. Lessac-Chenen, our Chief Medical Officer, delivered three babies over the weekend! Little Rivers supports patients with family planning services, prenatal, labor and delivery, and postnatal care. Families who choose Little Rivers Health Care for their obstetrics and prenatal care experience the highest level of personal attention throughout the women’s pregnancy. Our family-focused environment provides a range of medical and emotional support for women during this exciting, life-changing time in their lives during pregnancy, delivery, and infanthood. 

The Little Rivers team of medical providers had a monthly meeting early this morning. The meeting was conducted by conference call and many topics were reviewed regarding the pandemic. Planning is under way to start up in-person care for well child visits and with special attention to pediatric vaccinations , especially for children under 2 years old. Well child visits may be provided with a well check by televisit or by phone and a follow up in-person 5 to 10-minute physical. Initial planning was discussed for time-sensitive adult annual exams. The team will continue to plan to open up more appointments in a cautious manner and in accordance with CDC and State based guidelines, and we will share more information just as soon as it is available. The provider team also discussed possible preliminary stages for resuming medical student preceptorships. Many of our providers work with students from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and the Robert Larner College of Medicine at UVM. Students spend a portion of their time observing our primary care physicians in their offices. 

Governor Phil Scott announced last week that the state is working to significantly increase and strengthen its testing and contact tracing programs in order to quickly identify, contain and suppress cases and outbreaks of COVID-19. Vermont is now urging medical providers to refer patients with mild symptoms for testing and to test symptomatic children (those younger than 18 years). Patients should be referred to hospitals, associated test centers, and centralized testing sites such as local Federally Qualified Health Centers. Little Rivers conducts tests for Little Rivers patients in Wells River and Bradford, and we also serve as a centralized testing center in Wells River for patients referred from other medical providers (all patients regardless of referral source). 

Join us on tomorrow at noon at our Community Zoom meeting to a provide information about how to access health care, how to apply for health insurance, sliding fee scale, access to care regardless of your ability to pay, and access to food & transportation. The meeting is open to anyone, and access can be by phone, online with audio and video, or online chat. More meeting information is available on our website home page under ‘Upcoming Events’ at https://www.littlerivers.org/ or on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/littlerivershealthcare/.

VT COVID-19 Cases (as of midday today): Total cases: 907, New Cases: 5, Deaths: 52 (no new deaths). Vermont has 8 patients currently hospitalized for COVID-19 and 25 hospitalized under investigation. Windsor County has 43 cases, Washington County has 35 cases, Caledonia County remains at 14 cases and Orange County at 8 cases (1 new case). Windsor has 2 deaths so far, Washington 1, and none in Caledonia and Orange Counties. Orange County Vermont remains at 2 cases per 10,000 people. In our region, there are confirmed cases in Lyndon, Kirby, St. Johnsbury, Waterford, Marshfield, Groton, Orange and Fairlee.