Outpatient and day surgeries to resume next week for Waterloo Wellington hospitals

Hospitals still struggling amid latest wave From CTV Kitchener’s Krista Simpson: Hospitals are still dealing with capacity issues as the Omicron wave starts to decline.

As the province lifts last month's directive that ordered hospitals to pause non-urgent and non-emergent surgeries, a local hospital official says some procedures will be able to resume in the coming days at Waterloo Region and Wellington County hospitals.

"We will be resuming more surgeries starting next week with outpatient and day surgeries, so that will be the place we will begin," said Lee Fairclough, the hospital lead for Waterloo Wellington hospitals during a virtual interview with CTV News Kitchener.

Such surgeries include cataract , orthopedic, and minor procedures for skin lesions.

Fairclough noted hospital capacity is still under some pressure with COVID-19 patients who are no longer infectious, but still require hospital care.

She is hoping that "we see more the in-patient bed capacity open up [and] we will continue to gradually resume" procedures that require hospital stays.

According to a biweekly update issued Tuesday, there are 15,937 patients on a wait list, and of those 56 per cent are cataract patients.

Officials provided this waitlist breakdown by hospital:

According to Fairclough, roughly 2,300 patients were added to the waitlist last month.

"We are equally eager to get people here for their care. You will hear from us. The hospital or your surgeon's office will be contacting you," said Fairclough.

She also stressed that the amount of imaging that's happening at the hospitals has increased and hospitals will be reaching out to patients to book those appointments.

A Friday update from Waterloo Wellington hospitals said there are five available ICU beds, and a shortage of 12 medical/surgical beds.

The update said local hospitals “continue to care for more patients than there are beds and despite local vaccination efforts, a large number of patients being admitted for care severely ill as a result of COVID-19 are unvaccinated.”

“This trend is not unique to the region but reflected across the healthcare system as reported by Ontario Science Table in their Ontario Dashboard,” the update said.

Here is a further breakdown of information provided by Waterloo Wellington hospitals: