Slowly but surely, elective and non-urgent procedures are resuming at Windsor Regional Hospital.
The hospital announced Wednesday evening that the process has begun to gradually ramp up non-urgent and elective surgeries. This comes after the provincial government lifted an order to restrict surgeries to the most urgent cases.
Directive 2, from the Ontario Ministry of Health, was implemented on January 4 to limit hospitals to only performing surgeries that were medically urgent or for patients in life-threatening situations. The directive was issued in response to the rise in cases and hospitalizations caused by the COVID-19 Omicron variant, allowing for hospitals to preserve hospital beds for the sickest patients.
The hospital warns that the process of scheduling surgeries will take some time, and patients will be notified by their physician or surgeon's office when a surgical date is booked. Patients are asked not to call the hospital directly to inquire about surgery scheduling.
When Directive 2 was issued in January, the hospital reported 3,452 patients waiting for a surgical date. As of Tuesday, 4,194 patients were waiting.
