As hospital officials are working to reduce a surgical backlog from the early days of the pandemic, the rising number of COVID cases in Chatham-Kent is causing more concern.
Hundreds of non-emergency and elective surgeries were put off during the first wave, and CKHA CEO Lori Marshall says they’re trying to get back on track.
“Overall our goal is to increase access to five specific areas, gynecological procedures, gall bladder removals, hip and knee replacements, and cataracts, and in each of those cases we’re looking to increase the number of cases we were able to do over last year,” Marshall says. “While additional referrals and case volumes contribute to the total number of patients waiting for these procedures, our strategy is also to help with all of the other cases that may have fallen behind as well.”
However, Marshall says everything depends on not having to redeploy staff and resources once again.
As of Tuesday’s update, there are 11 COVID patients at CKHA, six of whom are in the ICU. Bed capacity in the ICU sits at 80%, while the hospital’s medical, surgical, and critical care beds are 95.6% full.
Board chair Alan Wildeman says it’s important for the entire community to help keep the hospital from being overwhelmed.
“The ability of CKHA, in fact all hospitals in Ontario, to continue to provide the services that people rely upon in all sorts of other areas besides COVID for their quality of life, and surgical procedures definitely are one of those,” Wildeman says. “It’s also an area that requires extensive reporting to the province on how we are doing, our funding is tied to surgeries, and it’s an area that the board is concerned about.”
Wildeman says time and time again, statistics have shown increased vaccination rates means lower COVID transmission and less severe illness.
Chatham-Kent currently has one of the lowest vaccination rates and highest transmission rates per capita in Ontario.