MARTINSVILLE — A Martinsville woman is quarantining after she says she called the Morgan County Health Department and found out she tested positive for the coronavirus.
She says she was waiting on test results, but no one ever contacted her.
“I was in a state of denial wondering how no one notified me,” Kathy Thorpe said.
Kathy Thorpe is a retired nurse but she's back helping out on the frontlines inside of hospitals. That was the case before she picked up the phone a few days ago and called the Morgan County health department and found out she had COVID-19.
“I call the health department and a nurse gets on the phone, I told her hadn't gotten any results she looked it up and said 'Well you are positive,'" Thorpe said. I was like I just can't believe this."
She took the test last week at the Morgan County Fairgrounds then waited patiently to find out if she was positive. She almost assumed she was in the clear when no one got in touch with her.
Now she's upset because she thought for sure if she was positive, someone would have let her know it.
“I have no symptoms, I don't feel sick or anything,” Thorpe said.
WRTV reached out to the Morgan County Health Department and they tell us it’s not uncommon for some people not to receive their results, even if they are positive, but those who take the test should reach out to them if they don't hear back instead assuming no response means negative.
“This is serious," Thorpe said. "I know accidents happen. This is a pandemic. You don't have errors like that could impact hundreds of people,” Thorpe said.
Thorpe doesn't necessarily agree with that approach but wants to make sure Hoosiers aren't waiting around for results. Morgan County is one of the areas trying to decrease its number of COVID-19 cases to leave the red level, the most serious level.
