1.28.22 Press Release

Continued Short-term Modifications to Services

Due to the rapid community spread of the COVID virus, and its impacts upon our staffing of services, the AST Health System will be making short-term modifications to our services to remain open through the remainder of January and provide patient care, but with very limited capabilities. This is due to the amount of staff and/or their family members, who are infected with the COVID virus at this time. We are in excess of a 40% positivity rate at this time and must take prudent action(s) to balance services and staffing ability. Patients will experience minor interruptions and delays in services until February 6th, 2022. Please note the following changes and modifications to our services:

- To the extent possible, all patient encounters will be virtual at Primary Care in Shawnee and Little Axe and Behavioral Health. Dental will no longer be seeing routine patient care and will only be seeing dental emergencies. Priority will be placed on prescription refills, post-hospitalization, and same-day urgent care visits. Both pharmacies will continue to remain open but are subject to change due to staffing being infected or declining and being able to work due to the surge in infections/virus spread.

- Public Health Mobile Care Units (MCUs) for drive-thru testing events will be severely strained and limited at both locations with priority given to the Little Axe location since the same day walk-in from Shawnee Clinic had already been consolidated into the PlusCare location and is set up and co-located to take the testing pressure off of the patients seeking walk-in care who are sick. The MCU’s are for established patients only and will operate contingent on weather staffing and is subject to change.

- Physical Therapy will only be seeing patients post-hospitalization and those already into their physical therapy regimens/treatment plans.

- Title 6 will still have contactless meals delivered with carrying out curb-side services only, no congregate meals.

- Specialty Care will remain in place for Little Axe and Shawnee Clinic and be virtual where possible.

- Diabetes/Wellness telehealth visits, to include nutritional visits, to be virtual.

- Transportation will have to move to a priority scheduling system for dialysis, chemotherapy, and other critical patient appointments.

We appreciate the community support, understanding, cooperation, and assistance as we all struggle to get through this recent surge and most rapidly spreading impact of COVID infections seen to date since the pandemic initially emerged in 2020.

For any inquiries or any unique medical assistance you may encounter, please coordinate through your primary care provider or ASTHS Administration by calling 405.447.0300. To stay informed of changes and access the most current information, please follow the “Absentee Shawnee Tribal Health System” on Facebook and visit our website at www.asthealth.org for daily updates. Ne-yi-wa! ###