To Our Patients and Community Members:
MGH Charlestown and NEW Health Charlestown want you to know that we are working hard with Massachusetts General Hospital to confront the COVID-19 epidemic, and we are here for you. We have two important messages for the community at this time:
•If you have a cough, fever, or other flu-like symptoms, please contact your primary care physician by phone so that we can advise and triage you appropriately. We ask you NOT to come directly to clinic without calling to be triaged, because many patients with respiratory infections (including COVID-19) can be managed safely at home, which is often the safest option, and MGH is creating alternative sites for the management of respiratory infections. We will remain at work and at the other end of the line to take your calls, and we will make sure you get the treatment you need.
•If you have a scheduled doctor’s visit that is non-essential and can be postponed, please contact your physician’s office to reschedule—this will allow us to keep up our capacity to help the main hospital by seeing urgent visits.
In addition, in your own lives, please follow state and national guidelines around “social distancing” and person to person infection control, which are all-important in reducing the impact of COVID-19 on our communities. For more guidance on those strategies and for other information about COVID-19 we offer this web resource from MGH, which is updated frequently and offers information and advice in multiple languages: https://www.massgeneral.org/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-latest-update.
Thank you, and please do not hesitate to reach out to our health centers with any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Jim Morrill, MD, PhD, Medical Director, MGH Charlestown HealthCare Center
Anne Murray-Chiraboga, MD, Medical Director NEW Health Charlestown