Primary Care Access By Appointment Only
St. Luke’s Wood River (SLWR) Family Medicine Clinic in Hailey has started in-person visits, but by appointment only for now. If you need to be seen for non-COVID issues, contact your primary care provider, the hospital said. Your provider may be able to schedule a virtual visit and, if you need to be seen in person, can schedule an appointment.
Same-day appointments for non-COVID illnesses and injuries are available at St. Luke’s Family Medicine, 1450 Aviation Drive, Hailey, Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Please call (208) 788-3434 to schedule an appointment.
The SLWR Family Medicine Clinic in Hailey also has providers available to see patients for COVID-related issues. If you think you might have symptoms of COVID-19 or may have been exposed, visit the hospital’s myChart tool to self-triage and determine what to do. You will be required to log in in to myChart to access the tool. If you need a myChart account, visit mychart.slhs.org
If self-triage indicates that you should be tested, you will be able to schedule an appointment in myChart to be seen in your car at the Hailey clinic for sample collection.
You may also call our triage hotline at (208) 381-9500 for assistance in English and Spanish. The hospital will be able to complete a risk assessment over the phone and provide guidance on next steps, which may include arranging specimen collection for testing, if necessary.
Numerous measures have been put in place to provide extra safety for patients and staff to provide care, whether it be for wellness checks, illness or injury. They include:
- Virtual visits through the myChart app. Many primary care and specialty visits can now take place by phone or video chat.
- Phone check-ins. Many clinics are now checking in patients online or over the phone before you enter the facility. This cuts down on the time you spend in the lobby. We also offer online check-ins for myChart users.
- Patient, visitor and employee screenings. Thermal scanners at employee entrances quickly check the temperature of employees as they enter our facilities. For patients and visitors, we do a “sign and symptom” evaluation before allowing entrance.
- Increased cleaning of facilities. A clean facility is always vital, but during the COVID-19 crisis, we’re taking even more steps to ensure safe, clean facilities.
- Universal masking. St. Luke’s requires masks in every patient-care environment.
- Strict visitor policies. All facilities are limiting or excluding visitors, including those joining patients on clinic visits. Minors under the age of 18 may have one visitor: parent, guardian or intended parent.
Elk Crossing Leads To Motorcycle Wreck
On Sunday, August 2, at approximately 1:15 p.m., deputies with the Blaine County Sheriff’s Office responded to a single motorcycle crash on Highway 75 near Deer Creek Road north of Hailey.
Crash scene investigation determined that the driver, Calvin D. Connell, age 56, of Twin Falls, was traveling southbound on Hwy. 75 on a 2008 Suzuki motorcycle when the vehicles in front of him slowed for a herd of elk crossing the highway. Connell was unable to stop in time and laid the motorcycle down to avoid striking the vehicle in front of him.
Connell and his passenger, Endura Connell, age 52, of Twin Falls, received minor injuries. Damage to the motorcycle was estimated to be less than $1500. The southbound lane was blocked for approximately 30 minutes.
SVCS Students Bring Class Outdoors
“From our campus to the wilderness” is the phrase that begins Sun Valley Community School’s mission. That is just what Upper School English teacher and author of “Hemingway’s Sun Valley: Local Stories Behind His Code, Characters and Crisis” Phil Huss made sure his students experienced during his junior and senior American Environmental Literature and Outdoor Leadership course he led this summer.
During this three-week summer term course for credit, students learned online before trekking into the White Clouds Wilderness for four days with Huss and Celeste Holland. Many students take this course in the summer so that they can reduce their academic load during the busy winter term of ski racing.
Students read and discussed three books: John McPhee’s “Encounters with the Archdruid,” Farley Mowat’s “Never Cry Wolf,” and Christopher Ketcham’s “This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, And Corruption are Ruining the American West.” Each book was chosen as a gateway into students’ research on studying local issues surrounding salmon recovery, wolf depredation, and wilderness policy.
During their backpack into the White Clouds Wilderness, students bagged peaks, fly-fished, journaled from writing prompts, and glassed for mountain goats.
“This year, we were fortunate to capture a glimpse of a family of five mountain goats, three wolverines, and caught and released numerous cutthroat trout. Students truly felt the value of wilderness firsthand,” said Huss.
Students will write a final paper and incorporate their personal experiences in the wilderness as part of their argument. Students chose one environmental issue for their papers: salmon recovery and dam removal, repeal of the Idaho wolf depredation law, or wilderness policy revision.
“Students consider both sides of these issues; there are always valid counterviews and we study them in detail,” Huss said.
St. Luke’s Launches COVID ‘Dashboard’
St. Luke’s Wood River is bringing an additional resource online to help share information with the community about what is happening within its health system related to COVID-19. A new COVID-19 data dashboard is now available on the St. Luke’s website at the following URL: stlukesonline.org/health-services/service-groups/covid-resources/covid-data-and-reporting
The dashboard provides COVID-19 statistics and trends related to St. Luke’s facilities and service area. The data is updated once a day and represents a snapshot of a specific point in time for the previous day. Where useful, it also includes rolling averages and trend lines. These numbers are specific to St. Luke’s Health System only, and not representative of any other healthcare organizations.
Dashboard users will find a helpful introduction that includes valuable context for understanding the types of data St. Luke’s is sharing, how it is being captured, and the relevant context for interpreting the information. Users will also see key metric definitions and are encouraged to spend a few moments first reading through the introduction information to best understand how St. Luke’s uses this data to inform decisions.
The data shared is consistent with the types of information St. Luke’s has been providing to various federal, state and local health agencies since March. Examples include the number of people hospitalized in St. Luke’s facilities for COVID-19 contrasted with the number of people hospitalized in St. Luke’s facilities for other reasons, and testing volumes indicating how many tests were conducted and the number of positive results. Some of the data can be filtered by county and hospital location. The information on the dashboard may evolve as St. Luke’s works to build out the dashboard over time.
Sen. Candidates To Square Off In Hailey
Central Idaho for Liberty (CI4L) will be hosting a Senatorial campaign debate on Sept. 17 from 4 to 6 p.m. in Hailey, the conservative political action committee announced.
Both Republican Senatorial candidate Eric Parker and Democrat incumbent Senator Michelle Stennett were extended and have accepted the invitation. The Senatorial race between Sen. Stennett and Parker encompasses Idaho’s Legislative District 26; namely, Blaine, Camas, Gooding and Lincoln counties.
The public is encouraged to submit questions to the candidates via email to ci4liberty@gmail.com. Please indicate “Debate Question” in your subject line and state your question, and whether it is directed to Sen. Stennett or Mr. Parker or both.
High-Profile Criminal Cases Draw Closure
In separate matters, two criminal cases that drew intense public attention across the region have gained closure. Matthew Park, a Fairfield man convicted of three counts of vehicular manslaughter and one count of aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol, was sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison, while Todd Engel, an Idaho man convicted of obstruction of justice and extortion in the Cliven Bundy standoff, saw his conviction vacated by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The manslaughter case had garnered widespread attention throughout the Valley after three young Mountain Home girls were killed when Park failed to stop in time for a construction traffic light along U.S. Highway 20 and rear-ended the sedan carrying the driver and his four passengers, three of them his young daughters. The Bundy standoff received added attention here since Valley resident Eric Parker, now free and running for a seat in the Idaho Senate, was one of the men arrested.
The 9th Circuit ruled last week that a district judge in Nevada improperly refused to allow Engel to represent himself during his trial, at which a standby counsel was appointed to assist in his defense. The appellate court said he should have been allowed to represent himself. Engel was found guilty in April 2017 and was sentenced in July 2018 to 14 years in federal prison.
Phillips Fire Nearing Full Containment
As of press deadline Tuesday, the now 2,112-acre fire in the Sawtooth National Forest north of Fairfield is 86 percent contained, the U.S. Forest Service said. The blaze started on Aug. 5 due to a lightning strike and currently has more than 400 personnel tending to it.
The Forest Service is asking the public to stay away from the area and has issued a temporary flight restriction over the area.
Wheels On Bus Go Round And Round, Electrically
By July of next year, public transportation users in the Wood River Valley will be riding on Mountain Rides Transportation Authority’s (MRTA) new electric buses.
MRTA plans to electrify a portion of their bus fleet in order to cut overall emissions as they retire aging diesel buses currently in use.
“Mountain Rides is fully committed to instituting a 100 percent zero-emissions vehicle fleet,” said Wally Morgus, executive director of MRTA.
Once that’s accomplished, replacing the existing diesel buses with a fleet of battery electric buses stands to eliminate upwards of 1,100 TONS of CO2 emissions annually from the skies over the Wood River Valley.
For the first phase of the bus electrification project, MRTA will acquire and put into service four 35-foot battery electric Xcelsior Charge buses from New Flyer of America. The project will also entail the acquisition and installation of 480-volt, dual-port charging stations manufactured by ABB, in Mountain Rides’ Ketchum and Bellevue depots, as well as installing the infrastructure to support the chargers, including new service transformers.
Eventually, MRTA plans to have 10 buses and seven chargers in Bellevue and eight buses and six chargers in Ketchum.