In order to preserve its ability to provide critical care, the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance will maintain a reduced surgery schedule beyond the holidays.
In a press release, the hospital’s chief of staff said the ramp down measure comes following a provincial directive to preserve critical care and human resource capacity at hospitals across Ontario.
According to Dr. Perez Faruqi, the holiday slowdown – normal for this time of year – will continue to facilitate emergent surgeries as the widespread transmission of the COVID-19 Omicron variant wave continues.
The surgery schedule will focus on urgent procedures including cancer surgeries.
As omicron bears down on Ontario – breaking records for the number of positive cases – it’s still unknown how the virus will impact hospital capacity across the board.
As of Dec. 31, there were 17 cases of COVID-19 at the CKHA, one of whom is not a resident of Chatham-Kent.
Of the total, 13 were unvaccinated, and the average age of COVID-19 patients is 70 years.
There were five COVID-positive patients in the ICU. Three ventilators were in use and these were all COVID-19 patients.
ICU occupancy sat at 70 per cent and 34 hospital staff were off work due to contracting the virus or from risk of exposure.
When the hospital returns to normal routine remains to be seen.
“We do not have a clear timeline for this temporary change, and we will assess on an ongoing basis when to resume back to normal operations,” Dr. Faruqi explained.
“We appreciate the public’s patience and understanding as we navigate through this next wave of COVID-19.”
In case of a surgery cancellation, patients will be notified by their surgeons in advance.
How many cases were actually admitted to hospital for Covid from those numbers. As pointed out recently in a Patrick Brown interview the numbers are skewed, and hospitals, government and media are guilty of not reporting responsibly. How many were only positive but with no symptoms , how many were mild symptoms, how many contracted the virus in hospital. So many important factors not reported. With symptoms for Omicron the same as a common cold, there is no reason for such measures regarding surgery, so instead people suffer longer, and in some cases, become worse or are left with permanent damage such as my case
Common cold? What hit my family over the Christmas break was significantly more than the common cold. Thankfully we were double vaxxed and did not wind up in the hospital.
This virus and its impact varies from individual to individual. People are still dying from omicron, unfortunately.
The cancellations of certain surgeries, however, is understandably frustrating.