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Non-urgent surgeries continue to be pushed back in BC

Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry and Minister of Health, Adrian Dix met this afternoon to give their weekly COVID-19 briefing.

Cumulatively from Sept. 5, 2021 to Jan. 8 2022, there have been 4,278 surgical postponements in British Columbia due to regional outbreaks from COVID-19, severe weather patterns, and other contributing factors.

In the past week alone, 530 non-urgent scheduled surgeries were postponed. That includes; 234 in Island Health, 162 in Interior Health, 75 in Fraser Health, 35 in Vancouver Coastal Health, 21 from the Provincial Health Service, and three in Northern Health.

“No patient wants to receive a call saying that their surgery has been postponed. We know that patients are anxious to get their surgery just as we are anxious to deliver that surgery and allow them to move on from it,” explained Dix.

“Surgeries that are postponed will be re-booked. Patients will get the surgery that they need.”

As of today, the 9,229 base hospital beds across the province currently sit at 95.6% capacity, while the 2,353 surge beds added for the pandemic stands at 24.9% capacity.

Of the 510 ICU beds in the province, 448 currently have people in them and from the 218 critical surge beds, 16 are currently in use.

</who>Photo credit: 123rf Additionally, the province noted their interest in potentially setting up a field hospital in the Lower Mainland to secure additional space capacity, but stated that they are not moving to stand up a field hospital at this time.

The Health Minister also mentioned that they are closely monitoring the level of sickness among health care workers.

From January 3 to 9, 27,937 shifts across all sectors of health care in BC called in sick due to short-term illness.

Dix clarified that these are individual shifts, which could mean a single person misses five shifts in one week. These call-ins could relate to COVID-19, people experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, or other illnesses.

From those shifts, 7,151 came from Fraser Health, 5,183 in Vancouver Coastal Health, 4,939 in Island Health, 4,713 in Interior Health, 1,308 in Northern Health, the remaining came from BC Emergency Health Services.

During this time while health care workers are out of work due to illness, there have been talks to fast-track health care professionals from out of province.

“In terms of students and medical graduates from other countries, provisions have been made under a public health order in order for them to be able to participate in vaccine clinics for example,” said Dr. Bonnie Henry.

“As the Minister has indicated we are doing the best we can to make that a less onerous process for people.”



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