Statement from Toiyabe, NIHD leaders

Toiyabe Chief Executive Officer Kori Novak, PhD MBA, and Northern Inyo Healthcare District’s Interim Chief Executive Officer Kelli Davis, MBA, have released the following joint statement, encouraging residents to limit their exposure and stay home:

To Our Community,

On behalf of the front-line health care professionals at Toiyabe Indian Health Project and Northern Inyo Healthcare District, we are urging you to stay at home.  As a small community we have to take care of each other and part of that is not only social distancing if we have to go out, but by staying at home to help curb the spread of COVID-19.

The more we limit our exposure, the faster this will be over for our community, our state, and our country.  As prepared as our healthcare teams in Bishop and the surrounding areas are; we, too, would struggle with the same issues that other health care providers are struggling with across the nation: lack of personal protective equipment, our own health care providers becoming ill, lack of space for a great number of patients, and burn-out of our caregivers and providers.

Even in our small communities, if we chose to ignore warnings and continue to leave our homes for things that are non-essential, we put our families, first responders, and health care workers – who are our friends and neighbors – at risk. Please stay at home.

If you are experiencing symptoms, please call your healthcare provider and make an appointment to see them right away. For more information on signs or symptoms, please visit our websites at www.toiyabe.us, www.nih.org or at the Center for Disease Control at www.cdc.gov.

For your health,

Kori Novak, PhD, MBA                                       Kelli Davis, MBA

CEO, Toiyabe Indian Health Project                Interim CEO, Northern Inyo Health District