Hospitals and health care organizations in the Southeast largely stayed open and functioning during Hurricane Helene to provide essential care for their communities.

Virginia State Police Aviation assets from Abingdon are helping evacuate 58 staff and patients from a Hospital roof in Erwin Tennessee, VSP said.

Patients and their caregivers were rescued from a Tennessee hospital’s roof after flooding caused by Hurricane Helene drove them from the building’s interior and conditions made rescue efforts difficult.

Individuals who test positive for COVID-19 and aren’t showing any symptoms will still be allowed work at Ballad Health, WCYB reports.

While the school year is starting off strong for many who attend schools in the Mount Rogers Health District, health leaders report daily case counts are increasing, hospitals are filling up and burnout is leading to staffing shortages.

As COVID-19 hospitalizations and cases rise in the area, Ballad Health has announced that it will be postponing all elective overnight surgeries starting Monday, Aug. 16.

NORFOLK, Va. – Health care workers in Virginia started receiving the state’s first doses of a coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday, kicking off what is likely to be a months-long process of inoculating people from the potentially deadly disease. The Ballad Health system broadcast live video of registered nurse Emily Boucher getting her first shot in an area of southwestern Virginia. Ballad Health is set to administer its first COVID-19 vaccine Ballad Health nurse Emily Boucher is set to receive the first COVID-19 vaccine in the Tri-Cities region. She spoke of patients “who are alone and lonely and scared” and the healthcare workers who sometimes hold up phones to patients’ ears “so they can hear a familiar voice.”Several health care workers at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital in the eastern part of the state also received injections. “My heart really goes out to our frontline health care workers, those that have come in every day,” said Gov.

RICHMOND, Va. – A health system serving a swath of the central Appalachian mountains says it will halt non-emergency elective procedures due to surging cases of COVID-19 and capacity concerns at its Virginia and Tennessee hospitals. Ballad Health officials announced the change Wednesday at a news conference. It will take effect Monday and last for at least 30 days. Ballad CEO Alan Levine also announced that the system has one refrigerated morgue truck at a Tennessee hospital and has ordered a second one for a different hospital. Ballad has been pleading with community members for months to follow basic public health measures to stop the spread of the virus.