The resumption of non-urgent surgeries and procedures is ramping up at Bluewater Health.
The Ontario government lifted Directive 2 last week in order to allow for the gradual resumption of non-emergent surgeries and procedures.
Bluewater Health began scaling back on select procedures in December 2021.
Over the coming days, the hospital will begin rescheduling surgeries and procedures. Patients will be notified of opportunities to reschedule.
Chief of Staff Dr. Mike Haddad said it's difficult to specify how long it will take to clear the surgical backlog locally.
"The effects of slowing down [non-urgent surgeries and procedures] obviously led to an increase in backlog. It's hard to exactly quantify it because it depends on the specialty in the area," said Haddad. "For example, certain specialties that deal more with cancers, don't have as much of a backlog because we did our best to accommodate cancer cases."
However, elective surgeries such as hip and knee replacements, have more of a backlog.
"Some of the wait times went up by 25 per cent or so and some of the case volumes went up by 25 per cent or so, so as we reopen again we're better off with malignant cases but we're trying to catch up more on the non-malignant cases."
Haddad said surgeons are looking at their cases and reprioritizing patients based on their clinical condition.
The process of ramping up services in different areas of a hospital in unison requires a lot of effort and the redeployment of staff once again.
Haddad said staffing has always been an issue and "will be the bottleneck" as elective procedures resume.
"We have been getting busy here with non-COVID patients, so if you look at hospital occupancy now it's about 95 per cent, we're pretty much full," he said. "So we have to redouble our efforts to accommodate the forecasted increase in workload as we do more elective procedures."
Haddad said Bluewater Health aims to ramp up to roughly 70 per cent of pre-COVID operations next week.
"In certain areas, like our clinics and diagnostic imaging, it's close to 100 per cent. But to get back to 90 or 100 per cent, that will take some time."
Haddad is thanking the community for its patients and said he knows it has been tough for patients who have been waiting for procedures.
"Things are getting better. We're more hopeful as we get into the spring."
Less than one month ago, Bluewater Health was treating 59 COVID-positive patients, including 10 in the ICU. On Wednesday, the Sarnia hospital had nine COVID-positive patients in hospital, one in intensive care.
