From the Heart: Good news from the COVID front

Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021 | Vol. 2, No. 2

Is it spring yet?

While there wasn’t any throwing happening during last week’s COVID-curtailed Mardi Gras non-celebration, it remains to be seen if there was any catching going on.

Just like national data, numbers at St. Tammany Health System show predictable spikes in COVID infections in the weeks following major holidays, despite the repeated warnings of our health officials to be cool and follow the social-distancing rules.

Still, it’s worth noting that – at least for now – local COVID numbers are finally heading in the right direction once more. On Tuesday of this week (Feb. 23) STHS had its lowest number of inpatients under COVID care since the week before Thanksgiving.

That number, for the record: 17.

That’s still too many, but it’s a far cry from the 66 we had back on Jan. 15, which currently stands as our high-water mark.

Maybe the recent cold weather is responsible, forcing people to hunker down and stay at home, and thus reducing community spread. Maybe it’s the fact that more and more people are becoming eligible for the vaccine. Or maybe everybody is figuring out that it’ll take a community-wide effort to get through this pandemic.

Whatever the reason, we like the result.

Soon enough, we’ll be marking the arrival of spring, that annual season of rebirth and resurrection. Here’s hoping we’ll all soon be feeling the sun on our faces – together.

Until then: Be well, take care of each other, and enjoy this latest collection of good news from the halls of St. Tammany Health System.

Community checkup with Joan Coffman

COVID-19 continues to dominate headlines, but there’s a lot more than just the pandemic happening at St. Tammany Health System, according to STHS President and CEO Joan Coffman in her latest video message to the community.

The gift of time

Fall had only just descended on Covington in 1955 as Doris G. Alexander returned home from having a procedure done at the then-new St. Tammany Parish Hospital, and she felt an urge to say something.

The hospital facilities, she wrote in a letter to the editor of the St. Tammany Farmer, were clean and beautiful. The doctors were “fine and congenial.” The nurses and their aides were “pleasant at all times.”

But she saved arguably her most effusive praise for the members of the St. Tammany Hospital Guild, the all-volunteer organization that has been a compassionate presence at the hospital for 66 years.

The guild gets the spotlight in this latest installment in our occasional series on the history of St. Tammany Health System.

Read the full story

Roll up those sleeves

Effective Monday (Feb. 22), and in keeping with state Department of Health guidelines, STHS has expanded COVID vaccine eligibility. Among those now included: teachers, pregnant women, and people 55 and over with at least one of the conditions listed by the CDC as placing them at “increased risk.”

Tips for your ticker

It’s Lent, which is a time in which many people in South Louisiana traditionally dedicate themselves to sacrifice and reflection after the unbridled craziness of the Carnival season. But February is also American Heart Month, making this a good time for people to rededicate themselves to achieving good heart health.

Muses and their shoeses

There weren’t any Mardi Gras parades this year, thanks to COVID-19, but members of the Krewe of Muses recently went out of their way to make sure the healthcare heroes at St. Tammany Health System got a taste of Carnival anyway, giving away 100 of the krewe’s coveted signature throws: glittery, hand-decorated shoes.

See the photos

Another autism certification

St. Tammany Pediatrics, the primary care pediatric practice of STHS, has been named a Certified Autism Center by the International Board of Credentialing and Education Standards. It joins our pediatric inpatient and emergency departments, which were named Certified Autism Centers in August.

St. Tammany Health System