GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The largest health system in West Michigan is planning to care for coronavirus patients from southeast Michigan.
Spectrum Health Butterworth and Blodgett hospitals will be receiving the patients, according to Andrea Finnigan, a communications specialist for Spectrum Health, this afternoon.
The health system also released a statement on the plan:
"We are doing our best to plan for the anticipated surge of COVID-19 cases that we believe are imminent in the coming days in our region," Spectrum Health said. "Spectrum Health’s mission is to improve health, inspire hope and save lives. We support the State of Michigan’s efforts to plan for expanded hospital capacity.
"At this time, we have capacity and have developed a compassionate patient acceptance plan where we will accept a limited number of medically appropriate COVID-19 patients from southeast Michigan. We anticipate the surge in southeast Michigan will be declining as we increase our patient load and may need hospitals there to help us in a similar way.
"This will be carefully coordinated and highly collaborative with other health systems in the state. We are all in this together."