Health Minister Adrian Dix says non-urgent surgeries at Surrey Memorial Hospital resumed this week.
In Tuesday’s (Oct. 5) COVID-19 update, Dix said the week before he reported that “pressures from COVID-19 had caused additional postponement of non-urgent scheduled surgeries in several health authorities.”
While he said a number of hospitals are continuing to postpone non-urgent surgeries, he added SMH will be getting back to them this week in its second operating room, “fully restoring all surgeries at that hospital.”
In an email to the Now-Leader, Fraser Health said some elective surgeries were postponed on Sept. 7, “as the site temporarily reduced its elective surgery capacity by one operating room per day.” The statement adds all remaining operating rooms continued for unscheduled and scheduled surgeries and priority remained unchanged for all urgent, emergent and oncology surgeries.
Between Sept. 26 and Oct. 2, Dix said, the five health regions postponed 241 non-urgent scheduled surgeries, with 16 of those in Fraser Health, 56 in Interior Health, one in Northern Health, 11 in Vancouver Coastal Health and 157 in Island Health.
READ ALSO: Vancouver Island sees far more surgery delays due to COVID-19 than rest of B.C., Oct. 7, 2021
He added between Sept. 6 and Oct. 2 there were 1,384 surgical postponements.
Fraser Health said since Sept. 7, 68 surgeries were postponed due to COVID-19.
With that, Dix continued to urge British Columbians to get vaccinated.
As of Oct. 6, according to the province’s latest COVID update, 81.9 per cent of eligible B.C. residents have had both doses, while 88.4 per cent have had their first dose.
lauren.collins@surreynowleader.com
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