The Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance is postponing all non-urgent, non-essential services at its hospitals in Clinton, Seaforth, Stratford and St. Marys until further notice.
Alliance CEO Andrew Williams said given the current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic, they felt it was important to reduce the amount of interaction in their hospitals as much as possible and that includes focusing only on the work that absolutely has to get done. So they're postponing non-urgent, non-emergent work to a later date and that will reduce traffic in the organization and that will reduce the potential spread of COVID-19.
Williams added their challenge is to prepare the organization for a public health situation that is evolving on a day to day basis.
“We felt from that perspective it was really important that we, as a hospital, focused only on that work that absolutely had to get done. We're postponing non-urgent, non-emergent work to a later date, which will reduce the traffic in the organization,” said Williams. “We do have an accountability as a hospital system to prepare and to be ready should there be an increase in the demand on hospital resources. We don't know if and when that's going to happen, but if it does happen and we're not ready, it's too late."
