Windsor Regional Hospital, Erie Shores HealthCare to resume non-urgent day surgeries

Windsor Regional Hospital and Erie Shores HealthCare plan to resume some surgeries that were put on hold this spring as the third wave of COVID-19 surged around the province.

In a media release on Tuesday, the two hospitals said they plan to gradually restart non-urgent and non-emergency procedures.

In line with the province's guidance for resumption of surgeries, at this time doctors will only be doing procedures that do not require an in-patient bed.

"This will be a gradual and incremental restoration of more elective surgeries which will take many weeks, especially when you consider the volume of procedures that needed to be rescheduled and the need for preoperative care that has been on hold," WRH chief of staff Dr. Wassim Saad said in a media release. 

"Please be patient while we take the steps necessary to continue a safe, slow and incremental approach to gradually addressing the needs of all of our patients and their loved ones."

Dr. Ross Moncur, who is chief of staff at Erie Shores HealthCare, said the hospital is working to find ways to operate beyond capacity to reduce the surgical backlog created by the pandemic.

Chatham-Kent Health Alliance also plans to resume the procedures. Hospital president and CEO Lori Marshall told reporters on a conference call Thursday that patients will be notified directly when their procedures will be rescheduled.

She was unable to say how much of a backlog the halting of non-urgent surgeries has created, but noted that during the same period last year, around 2,400 procedures were completed.

Province allows some non-emergency procedures to resume

Dr. David Williams, medical officer of health for Ontario, ordered non-emergency procedures to be halted province-wide on April 20 amid climbing hospitalizations and ICU admissions.

In a recent memo to hospitals permitting them to restart surgeries, Williams said new cases, hospitalizations, and ICU admissions appear to be trending downward.

"While these numbers remain high and we continue to see demand for health services related to COVID-19, we are beginning to see available capacity among community and hospital partners in some areas of the province," the memo states.

"It is therefore important to make use of this available capacity to limit the long-term impacts on patients awaiting non-urgent care."

Across the province, the backlog of procedures stood at nearly 250,000 when Williams order was initially made.