MOREHEAD, Ky. (LEX 18) — Gov. Beshear and other Kentucky leaders were recognized during a celebration in Morehead Wednesday, where they thanked health care workers for their sacrifices throughout the pandemic.
Saint Claire HealthCare hosted the event at the Morehead Convention Center, where doctors, nurses, public health officials, and other health care workers from the area met for the evening.
"We dealt with something we've never seen, something we've never fought and had to make a lot of hard sacrifices and decisions that we never knew we were going to have to," said Dr. Parker Banks with St. Claire HealthCare.
Beshear, his Senior Advisor Rocky Adkins, and Kentucky Department for Public Health Commissioner Dr. Steven Stack spoke at the event.
"I can't tell you how grateful I am that you were there even in the midst of this virus to hold their hands when other people couldn't be," Beshear said when talking about the people who were lost to COVID-19.
Adkins was emotional when he shared the story of his father, who was hospitalized at St. Claire Regional Medical Center with COVID-19.
"If any of you are in this room that treated my father, thank you from the bottom of my heart because I want to report to you your good work," he said. "My father has fully recovered."
Health care workers are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, Dr. Banks said, but the fight against the virus is not over.
COVID-19 cases are once again on the rise in Kentucky because of the delta variant. About half of Kentuckians remain unvaccinated.
Banks said he continues to encourage his patients to take the vaccine and dispel any myths they may have heard about it.
"If people would be able to shed that and go get their vaccine, it would help us tremendously in fighting this," he said.
