The region's hospitals are preparing to resume certain surgeries and procedures after announcing some will resume this week.
On Friday, the Waterloo Wellington COVID report said that the province's Chief Medical of Health, Dr. Kieran Moore, issued a memo lifting Directive #2 and updating Directive #2.1 to allow hospitals to gradually resume non-urgent and non-emergent surgeries or procedures.
Starting Monday, hospitals in Guelph and Wellington County will resume surgeries such as cataracts, some orthopedic surgeries and other general surgeries. All urgent and emergency procedures that require inpatient stay will continue.
Those waiting for surgery or imaging will be contacted by the hospital and/or their surgeon’s office to schedule an appointment. Last week, the Waterloo Wellington COVID report said wait lists for surgeries and procedures grew to 2,300 patients per month after staff and resources were redeployed to deal with the rise in Omicron.
Local officials hope that if the trends for hospitalization for COVID continue to decrease, it will create even more opportunity to resume this care. Local hospitals will continue working together to smooth capacity across the community, which may include transferring patients when necessary, as part of Directive 2.1.
Within the community, the release reports hospitals are caring for more people than there are beds for. A large number of patients being admitted for care are severely ill as a result of COVID-19 are unvaccinated, a trend also seen across hospitals in Ontario.
