Town Crier “Briefs from the Region” (1) – 12/1/20
Montanans believe in their personal freedoms, says Dr. Scott Ellner, CEO of Billings Clinic, a hospital campus that has seen among the worst cases and capacity issues in the state, and recently lost a doctor of their own to COVID-19. That belief, however, won’t stop the oncoming surge of virus cases Montana is expecting to witness following Thanksgiving Day festivities. Ellner says the hospital is at or beyond capacity and has made every possible adjustment to accommodate more patients, including having assisted living facilities treat patients on site and transferring to neighboring hospitals as needed.
“The most sobering thing that we saw, actually this past weekend, was unfortunately that we lost one of our physicians to COVID, so this is really hitting our workforce, our Billings Clinic family pretty hard,” Ellner told CNBC Montana.