Lawrence + Memorial Hospital and Westerly Hospital treating COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma

New London, CT/Westerly, RI (April 22, 2020) ꟷ Lawrence + Memorial Hospital and Westerly Hospital are treating patients with plasma donated by people who have recovered from COVID-19 through a protocol recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Three patients at Westerly Hospital and one at L+M have received plasma infusions from donations obtained through the New York Blood Center. All of the Yale New Haven Health delivery networks are participating in a nationwide clinical trial overseen by the Mayo Clinic to administer convalescent plasma to treat COVID-19.

“We are extremely pleased to be able to offer this treatment as an option for our patients,” said Mudassar Khan, MD, the study’s lead investigator at Westerly.

“The premise is that the donor’s immunity can be passed on to the recipient.” Plasma therapy has been used in the past to treat SARS, Ebola and a variety of other infections. Plasma is the fluid part of the blood left once the red cells, white cells and platelets are separated.

Lawrence + Memorial Hospital, a member of Yale New Haven Health, is a non-profit, 308-bed general and acute care hospital providing patient care to medical, surgical, pediatric, psychiatric and obstetrical patients in southeastern Connecticut and southern Rhode Island since 1912. Lawrence + Memorial offers cardiac acute, step-down and rehabilitation programs and is the only eastern Connecticut hospital that performs emergency and elective angioplasty. www.lmhospital.org

Westerly Hospital, a member of Yale New Haven Health, is a 125-bed hospital that has been providing residents of southern Rhode Island and southeastern Connecticut with a full range of inpatient and outpatient services in a community hospital setting for more than 90 years. Westerly Hospital patients receive the finest quality treatment in the following areas of care: emergency, medical, surgical, radiology, laboratory and rehabilitative services. The hospital also offers heart and vascular care, interventional pain management, wound care, pulmonary rehabilitation services, inpatient geriatric psychiatric care and comprehensive cancer care provided through the Smilow Cancer Hospital Care Center. All inpatient rooms are private. westerlyhospital.org