WINNIPEG -- As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, health facilities across the province have had to postpone non-urgent surgical and diagnostics procedures – now health officials are saying they’ll start to increase surgical activity over the next week.
Lanette Siragusa, Manitoba’s chief nursing officer, made the announcement during the province’s daily COVID-19 update at the legislative building on Friday.
“We know that waiting for procedures can be very stressful on patients and we know that there are postponed cases that can not wait any longer,” said Siragusa.
“We have been planning, we’ve always been planning for the time when we need to ramp up our surgical activities and this is a careful balance of clinical assessment and system capacity.”
Siragusa said surgeries will be scheduled for the most urgent cases first.
“This is a one week ramp up plan that will see significant increases in neurosurgery, vascular surgery and thoracic surgery,” said Siragusa.
She added it will also include urgent cataract, orthopedic, and cancer cases.
Throughout the next week, this means surgical activity will be gradually increase at:
- Health Sciences Centre,
- the Pan Am Clinic,
- Concordia Hospital,
- Misericordia Health Centre,
- Grace Hospital,
- St. Boniface Hospital,
- Victoria General Hospital,
- Boundary Trails Health Centre,
- Selkirk Regional Health Centre,
- Brandon General Hospital.
The Province said all precautions will be taken to protect staff and patients from the risk of COVID-19. Precautions will include point of care testing, appropriate PPE, and limiting the number of staff in a room to those who are essential for patient care.
Patients will be contacted directly about scheduling their surgery.
