Windsor Regional Hospital To Postpone All Non-Urgent Surgeries Beginning January 4th

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Windsor Regional Hospital will postpone all non-urgent, pre-scheduled elective surgeries for an indefinite period, effective January 4th, 2021.

The hospital says the decision was necessary due to in-hospital admissions of patients with COVID-19 continuing to rise at an “alarming rate” and a potentially critical shortage of available acute care beds, including critical care beds.

This amounts to an approximate 50% reduction in surgical volumes.

“The current situation with COVID-19 in our hospital and in our community is creating significant implications for our hospital and our ICU bed occupancy, as well as human resource limitations given the need to support services outside the Operating Rooms and/or hospital,” said WRH Chief of Staff Dr. Wassim Saad.

Sadd also said there is additional pressure on staffing resources for the two COVID-19 Assessment Centres and the vaccination centre at the St. Clair College Sportsplex.

As of Sunday, the hospital is running the COVID-19 vaccination centre seven days a week, focusing on the priority populations set by the Province.

They are also planning to expand the COVID-19 Assessment Centre at the Met campus to match the days and hours of operation of the Ouellette Centre in the near future.

Surgeons are being asked to review their elective cases that they had booked from January 4th and to contact booked patients to inform them of the postponement.

“We will continue to reassess our capacity for surgeries based on volumes on a regular basis,” said Saad. “We are doing our best to keep bed capacity available as our patient volumes increase during the second wave of this COVID-19 pandemic, while also conserving our hospital resources for the most urgent needs”.