The number of surgeries being completed at Chatham-Kent’s hospital is now even closer to pre-pandemic levels.
Lori Marshall, president and CEO of the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, said with more procedures resuming, the hospital has increased its number of surgeries to 90 per cent of the volume being completed in 2019, prior to the pandemic.
“That’s really great that we’ve been able to get to that stage,” said Marshall. “[I’m] really pleased to be back and almost functioning at 100 per cent in our operating rooms.”
Elective procedures were put on hold in early January because of increasing COVID cases and hospitalizations province-wide.
The increase in surgical volume at CKHA was recently approved by Ontario Health, putting CKHA in line with many other hospitals across Ontario.
“At this stage, the whole province is sitting at that level if they can, some are still at the 70 per cent level,” said Marshall. “As a province, we’ll all move together past that 90 per cent [level].
However, several health experts have warned that Ontario may enter a sixth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic this spring, due to the more contagious BA.2 subvariant of Omicron and the loosening of public health restrictions.
“The province is also probably sitting in a cautiously optimistic place right now,” said Marshall.
On Wednesday, CKHA said 12 patients have been admitted to hospital with COVID-19 but only four were being treated primarily for the virus. One of those patients is being treated in the intensive care unit.
