Ballad To Halt All Elective Surgeries Beginning Monday

Ballad Health is suspending all elective procedures starting next Monday and has ordered a second refrigerator morgue truck as it continues to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

CEO Alan Levine made those announcements during a Wednesday news conference, stating the health system, who already has 261 patients being treated for the virus in its facilities, could see numbers reach as high as 550 by the end of the year. One morgue truck is already in place in Johnson City as capacity to store bodies of the deceased from COVID-19 are limited, prompting the health care system to order a second truck for Kingsport.

Additionally, the National Guard has been deployed to replace some clinical experts for testing as those individuals can be redeployed to hospitals for increasing staffing for the pandemic response.