A backlog of surgeries at the London Health Sciences Centre has ballooned to more than 7,000.
LHSC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Adam Dukelow announced the figure on Monday as the provincial government gave hospitals the go ahead to resume non-urgent surgeries and procedures.
"We will do our best to resume services as directed, but we’ll have to carefully balance resuming services with occupancy pressures, and the availability of our precious health human resources,” said Dukelow.
The pandemic has on several occasions, including earlier this month, resulted in delayed surgeries in order to save hospital capacity for soaring COVID-19 cases. Staffing shortages due to illnesses at the hospitals have also added to procedure postponements. At its worst during the Omicron fuelled fifth wave, there were more than 500 LHSC workers infected.
Early estimates indicate it will take three to five years to work through the surgical backlog, but "that's a very high level estimate and it depends on the evolving situation," noted Dukelow.
"Putting a timeline on how long is very challenging given the numbers continue to grow in terms of the backlog and we don’t know what the ongoing impact of COVID-19 will be on our [hospital] capacity," said Dukelow. "We certainly hope that we won’t have another wave in our future and that this current wave will dissipate relatively quickly, but we truly don’t know what to expect in the coming months."
As of Monday, there were 155 inpatients and 197 workers with COVID-19 at the LHSC. Those numbers were down from record highs of 166 COVID positive inpatients set on January 18 and 512 infected staffers set on January 12. The number of patients with the virus in the intensive care unit was 26 on Monday, up by four from Friday.
"It is important to acknowledge that we are currently not out of the woods at this point," said Dukelow.
He went on to strongly encourage the public to continue to follow public health guidance including wearing a face covering, social distancing, limiting contacts, and getting vaccinated. As of last week, more than 90 per cent of those aged 12 and older in London and Middlesex County had received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, while just under 50 per cent of those in the same age bracket had gone for their third shot.
The region's medical officer of health added that the vaccine remains the best way out of the pandemic.
"We have seen tremendous uptake in booster vaccination but we still have gaps. Less than 50 per cent of those under the age of 40 have received a booster dose," said Dr. Alex Summers. "So we still have a ways to go and closing that gap will be critical to us avoiding any further stressors on our healthcare system so that the backlog can start to be addressed."
