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Elizabethtown Community Hospital to offer testing by appointment in Elizabethtown and Ticonderoga

ELIZABETHTOWN — Elizabethtown Community Hospital will offer a by-appointment COVID-19 testing service at its Elizabethtown and Ticonderoga campuses, thanks to a new shipment of testing kits Essex County received from the state.

Appointments for the testing service will be available daily from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. To schedule an appointment in Elizabethtown, call 518-873-3069. To schedule an appointment in Ticonderoga, call 518-585-3927.

The hospital’s testing service will be available to people with respiratory symptoms or other symptoms suggestive of COVID-19, those with exposure to a suspected or confirmed case, and those whose return to work depends on a negative test result.

The hospital has expanded eligibility for testing because there is now secure access to testing supplies, according to Chief Medical Officer Dr. David Clauss. The Essex County Office of Emergency Services recently received 75 COVID-19 test kits, the second such shipment from the state.

So far, COVID-19 testing in the North Country has been restricted to the sickest and most at-risk patients. The shortage is so severe that county public health officials reconfigured how they count the number of COVID-19 cases, to include suspected cases given preliminary diagnosis by a doctor alongside test-confirmed cases.

“Testing, and isolating positive cases, is the best way for us to avoid a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases in Essex County,” Essex County Health Department Director Linda Beers said in a press release.

“The latest shipment will bolster testing capacity in the region,” Beers added. “We have been working closely with our area health care providers to advocate for increased testing and expanded eligibility. With our support of additional test kits, and Elizabethtown Community Hospital’s efforts to provide care across the county regardless of whether they have a provider or insurance, we are seeing the barriers of transportation and cost eliminated for our residents looking to be tested.”

“Increased testing in our area will help inform decisions on how residents can safely return to work,” Clauss said in the release. “We want to do everything we can with the resources available to us to support those efforts and keep our community safe.”

In-person and telehealth appointments are also available at the hospital’s health centers located in AuSable Forks, Elizabethtown, Westport and Willsboro. The health centers are accepting new patients and offering next-day appointments. For more information, call 518-873-6896.

Elizabethtown Community Hospital and its Ticonderoga Campus are part of the University of Vermont Health Network.

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