There is progress at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre in clearing the backlog of non critical surgeries.
Dr. Stewart Kennedy notes even though they’re operating at 100%, it’ll still take time. “It’s going to take six months to a year to sort of really get up to date.”
Dr. Kennedy says COVID-19 simply added to the existing backlog of surgeries.
“Since mid September [since they began work], and we’re going to continue to increase it. But there are some challenges with human resources, as it takes time to train an operating room nurse,” notes Kennedy.
The hospital’s Executive VP adds the province will re-emburse the hospital for expenses from COVID-19, a number he says could be approaching $10-million.
As for the COVID-19 ward, as they work through surgeries amid a second pandemic wave, they are ready to spring the doors open.
“Once we have over six COVID patients in the hospital that require acute care, we’ll sit down and have a meeting with our incident management team, and have a decision then,” says Dr. Kennedy.
The District Health Unit reported one new active case this weekend, with none listed before that.
